NFL Films premieres new series on Alabama high school + its historic losing streak
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Columbia High School made plenty of local + national headlines before the 2025 football season started.
The Eagles carried the nation’s longest active losing streak into the season, becoming the subject of a segment on NBC’s Today Show + a Sports Illustrated article.
But that wasn’t the end of the national attention. NFL Films + Gatorade partnered with the high school to create a documentary throughout the season as Columbia chased its first victory since 2015.
All The Reasons Not To Quit
NFL Films, the creators of highly regarded documentaries such as Hard Knocks and Quarterback, has debuted the new series titled All The Reasons Not To Quit: The Columbia HS Story.
The first episode of the documentary series is available now on YouTube.
The series follows Columbia’s chase to end the nation’s longest high school football losing streak. It includes inside looks at practice sessions, interviews with coaches + players and a look at Gatorade’s involvement with the program.
Columbia’s partnership with Gatorade went beyond just filming the documentary series. The company provided personalized sweat testing and education, providing hydration recommendations to maximize players’ performance and recovery.
“With [Gatorade’s] support, our guys are training smarter, performing more efficiently and learning what it takes to be great on and off the field. This is bigger than football. It’s about teaching discipline, belief and building something special together as a team, and I’m proud to coach these young men.”
Sammie Coates Jr., Columbia head coach
Columbia High School football
The high school was founded in 2005 with its first football team taking the field in 2006 as a Class 4A team.
Over their first 10 seasons, the Eagles averaged 3.1 wins per season but never made the postseason and never finished with a winning record.
Since moving to the 6A level in 2016, Columbia has gone winless every season. The Eagles have now lost 101 consecutive games.
During that span, Columbia has had six different head coaches including Sammie Coates Jr., the former Auburn and NFL player who took over the program at the start of the 2025 season.
In Coates’ first year, the Eagles scored their most total points (90) in a season since 2020. Columbia nearly broke the streak this season, losing a game by just 4 points, its lowest margin of defeat since the losing streak began.
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