The U.P. Football All Star Game, the annual contest between the best graduated seniors on the gridiron from the region, has ended. This is according to a post made on the game’s official Facebook page from the game’s founder Todd Goldbeck.

“All I can say is that I did my very best to stay true to the purpose of the game and the values we tried to reinforce with the players. I gave this event everything I had from the very first player in 2008 to the very last player in 2023. For that, I am satisfied,” Goldbeck wrote.

Alger County had 10 players represented in the final game this year, with six from Munising, two from Superior Central and two from Mid Peninsula, who played with the Cougars before the Wolverines stepped away from the cooperative team last season. Both head coaches, Munising’s Matt Mattson and SC’s Josh Trader, were on the coaching staffs for last year as well. In total, dozens of athletes between the Mustangs and Cougars have donned the All-Star uniforms in the 14 years of the event.

Players also did numerous volunteer projects in the Marquette area, as the game was held annually at Northern Michigan University’s Superior Dome. Tens of thousands of pounds of canned goods and non-perishable foods were sorted and packed by players, with other leadership, friendship and mental health efforts raised during the week the team spent together.

“The experience has been about teamwork, camaraderie, and making new friendships with people who were unknown prior to All-Star Week or had been rivals for an entire lifetime. Over the past 16 years, we tried to imprint all of these ideals onto the players,” Goldbeck wrote in the release.

“There are many players who have been part of this event and are now scattered throughout the U.P. and across the country, building lives of their own. We hope they have taken some of the lessons we have tried to model for them and are making a positive impact in their own communities.”

Further interviews by local media with Goldbeck suggest that the game could be taken over with new leadership, who further clarified that he was stepping back to spend more time with family.