Football Friday Night at Mesquite High School is set aside on this night to especially recognize the Seniors.
"Just about the Seniors and basically about how far we've come," Senior Mesquite High Football player Dewayne Adams said.
"Really, we honor everybody, band cheerleaders, athletic trainers," Mesquite High School Head Football Coach Jeff Fleener said.
Among the more than 100 Seniors being recognized is Jordan Edwards who is no longer with his teammates.
His name was read while his family was escorted on to the field by some of his closest teammates.
His mother tells NBC 5 this recognition comes with mixed emotions.
"The exciting part is he would have finally been a senior," Jordan Edwards' mother Charmaine Edwards said. "So he would have been graduating and would not have no more boys to raise. The sad part is he is not actually the one walking and we are walking in place of him."
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It was in April 2017 Jordan and a group of friends were leaving a party. A white Balch Springs police officer fired his gun into the car of unarmed black teenagers killing Jordan. That officer was convicted of murder.
Healing from the loss hasn't been easy for his family.
"For me I don't think you'll ever get over it," Charmain Edwards said. "You just find a way to go day to day."
But moments like this to honor Jordan brings them--- and his teammates some joy.
"It's real important because he was a friend, a player, a family member," Adams said.
"He's never really left this team," Fleener said. "He left physically, and he is not here in his body, but who he is and what he meant to our team, what he meant to our school, has been carried out by those guys the last three years."
They will make sure what he meant to the team is never forgotten. His football locker is now a memorial that has helped the players through their grief and is now a place an inspiration.
"It's no longer the distraught, the pain, the sadness," Fleener said. "It's the, if you ask our kids now when they walk by his locker and they think of the good times. They think of the memories. They think of the way he used to make them laugh."
"It just brings back memories really," Adams said. "Just motivates me to go harder and who I'm doing it for."
That locker will be preserved the same way it is now, so future players to pass through locker room that didn't know Edwards personally will learn of his story and impact to the team.
Knowing her son's memory will continue to inspire future generations brings some joy into her life.
"It's a happy feeling," Charmaine Edwards said. "A pretty happy feeling that he made such an impact on those around and the world him the world actually."
