Football Week 16.... only one week left

I hate being late, ok let me clarify that before anyone who knows me calls me out about how I've never been anywhere in my life within 10 minutes of when I was supposed to be there. Yes, it true, I nearly missed the boat to my own wedding... literally. But when it comes to covering football it's sort of a superstition that I get there at least an hour early, when I show up late I think it pisses off the photo gods.

Last week I had to cover Cisco High School's game against Pottsboro in the Class 2A state semifinals. The game was in Justin, about 30 minutes north of Ft. Worth, which is about a 2.5 hour trek itself. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, the game was a 6pm start. The problem here was I had to shoot graduation in the morning, plus another assignment after that. By the time got done shooting the two assignments, then get back to the office and file them it was nearly 2:30, and I still needed to run home and let my dogs out. Well, by the time I got on the road it was nearly 3pm.

Now, about 10 years ago, I'd make up for getting out late by just driving faster, well now that I'm a little older and matured (and my wallet is thinner from too many speeding tickets). Now, I just got there as swiftly as I could without fracturing the law too much. Well, after battling traffic to get into the stadium and parking quite a walk away, and hearing the national anthem being played as I drove into the stadium. Then, hearing Cisco scroing their first touchdown as I walked into the gate. I was able to start making some photos, over half the first quarter was over.

The game was pretty good, Pottsboro played a spread offense and executed pretty well. However, holding on to the football was an issue for them. To the tune of five interceptions (two in the end zone) and two fumbles. This can also be attributed to Cisco's defense.

At halftime I went to the press box to set up my computer and do some editing so I wasn't so tight to send my stuff after the game. Well, I spent a little to long editing and wasn't able to get down to the field for the start of the half and Cisco got the opening kickoff and march down field pretty quick. The stadium in Justin, like many new stadiums is really nice, but for some reason all these new stadiums have INCREDIBLY SLOW elevators. Cisco was on the Pottsboro 20 yard line and moving the ball swiftly. I knew there was no way I'd get down to the field in time to get them scoring. So, I took a shot of shooting from the camera deck on the pressbox. My thinking was I have a 50/50 chance they would come to my side of the field and I could get something nice. While if I took the elevator I'd have no chance of getting down in time. Luckily it worked out and Cisco quarterback Josh Bridges scored in the corner of the endzone (above).

Well, Cisco took a pretty big lead into the fourth quarter and was looking like they were going to win the game. So, my next move is to try and figure out every angle the reporters would take for the advance stories about the state championship the following week. Basically, I ran down in my head all the feature stories that had been done on Cisco players for the year and kept my eyes out for any other starters I hadn't shot or we hadn't done stories on. As it turns out, the main story was on the coach and how he has built the program from nothing to three straight trips to the state semifinals and two championship game appearances in three years. We ended up using a shot I got of the coach in the first quarter (above).