Nineteen names, stories and dreams. Nineteen players that poured the foundation for the Charlotte 49ers football program.
Four years ago, they came together to play football for a school that didn't have football. There was no stadium, no uniforms and no games.
As head coach Brad Lambert likes to say, "they took a chance on us."
They came to the 49ers on the promise of pictures. There were renderings of the stadium, there was a gold-speckled green helmet used for photo ops and there was a whole lot of 49ers spirit.
Back in 2012, that spirit may have been tested as they ran out of a recently-completed locker room, past the rattle and hum of dump trucks and tractors and around orange construction netting to their first practices.