Nikon/camera experts? Lens

I'm a photographer for the yearbook and I'm assigned a lot of sports to take pictures of. I have a Nikon D5000 and the lens it came with: a Nikon DX AF-S NIKKOR 18-55 mm 1:3.5-5.6G VR. One of the sports I'm assigned to is football. I need a lens with more zoom capability. What do you recommend? If you could include a price range with your suggestion, I'd really appreciate it.

This is tough because High School football is usually at night. The stadium lights are not very bright. The problem with most consumer telephoto lenses is that they have rather small maximum apertures. Which means you can't get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action. When I shoot high school football I use a 70-200mm F2.8 IS lens and a 300mm F2.8 lens and I sometimes struggle with getting a fast shutter speed. These lenses are also large, heavy and very very expensive.

If you are shooting in daylight you won't have any trouble with a Nikon 70-300mm VR lens. Cost would be about $600. You can use this at the night games but you will have to crank up the ISO. You will still struggle but unless your prepared to spend thousands of dollars it is what it is.

You need to 1) find out from your instructor if the school has a longer lens, the one they used last year for shooting night football at night 2) using a long lens (something with 200 mm or 300 mm in the zoom range) 3) shoot at high ISO's, 4) use an external flash and 5) take care of any noise in the image in post while shooting at 3200 ISO.

Here is a sample of a high school game shot with a 300 mm lens @ 3200 ISO.

I used a monopod to provide help to prevent camera movement that might have caused blur

Ace, you sure about that flash? At a football game, you are not going to exactly be too close - even on the sidelines.

You have to have a fast telephoto lens. The cheapest you are going to get out with it is a Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8. They are about $800.

The other alternative, if you are only needing the lens for a short time is to rent a lens. You can do this for maybe $100 a week.

Finally, the poor-man's trick is to up the ISO on something like a consumer grade 70-300, and then use a good software like Adobe Lightroom, with it's great noise reduction engine and filter out the noise. I used to do this when taking hockey photos with some success.

Here are a couple of photos that demonstrate using Lightroom:

http://www.althephoto.com/concepts/iso.php

Also if you have a 70-300, it is a variable aperture lens, meaning as you zoom out, the lens gets slower. At 300mm it will be f/5.6 tops, but if you limit it to 200mm, your maximum aperture might improve a half or 2/3rds stop.

But in the end, you will do better with faster lenses than any other kind of trickery.

Nikon 55-300mm, 70-300mm. Price range? It would be better if you told us your price range.

Here's a Lens Buying Guide - http://www.the-dslr-photographer.com/2009/11/buying-a-lens/

No. You don't need a lens with great zoom. What you need is a longer focal length lens. Try one with at least 200mm.