National Champs...

This has been a pretty weird year. Normally weekends in November and December are reserved strictly for football. However, with Abilene High and Cooper making earlier than anticipated exits and the ACU football team (which was ranked #2 in the country) losing their lone playoff game, I was running out of teams to cover very fast.

Two weeks earlier the Hardin-Simmons University womens soccer team qualified for their first trip to the NCAA Division III Final Four. They were ranked #2 in the country in D3 and were playing only 4.5 hours down the road in San Antonio. So, unlike a lot of the teams that were coming from the northeast, this was practically a home game for them.

The semifinal game, was far from being my best. There wasn't a whole lot of action and ended in a 0-0 tie with HSU winning in a shootout. Part of the problem was the light kind of sucked, the other part was I was probably relying a little too heavily on waiting for a reaction shot either from a goal or from the loss. Then by the second half I was frustrated and while I got a few decent shots, it just wasn't what I wanted. Luckily they won the game and I'd have a chance to redeem myself in the game that mattered.

The next day I went in ready for the bad light and knowing I needed something better. The first few minutes I shot from the field, but planned as the light was going away quick I'd get up high and shoot before it got dark. The night before I was needing to jack up my ISO pretty high, and shooting from the stands I wanted to shoot really long so I had to have some daylight to keep stopping action. By the time the sun had gone down I was happier with the shots I had from 10-15 minutes of shooting up high than I was with anything I'd gotten the night before. So, instead of going back down to the field and shooting without the teleconverter, I figured I'd just slow down my shutter and try some pan stuff for the rest of the half.

It didn't hurt that, not only would I have the whole second half to shoot from the field, but I also knew the main shot we were going to run would be a reaction from the win/loss of the game. Well, luckily it worked out well going up high because in the second half HSU backed up and just protected their 2-0 lead, only giving up one goal which in the end didn't matter, but added to the drama. As the clock expired it was time to find the front page shot. One of the reasons I love shooting championship games is there is never a shortage of emotions. And with them winning the school's first team national championship in school history, they were certainly making the big deal out of it that it deserved. Ironically, the shot we ran isn't here. Although, I wasn't in love with the trophy shot, it was the iconic one that I still think was the best choice. But I like the group celebration shot better from right after the clock expired and the shot of them "guns up" better.

I'm With The Band...

In my 11 years at the Reporter-News the one event I've never shot is the UIL State Marching Band contest. It's always on a Monday, which is my day off. Well, with some crazy staffing issues we've had of late, I ended up getting sent to San Antonio for the event. The state marching band competition is kind of an interesting event because the classifications only go to state every other year. Meaning, in four years of high school a student can only go to state a maximum of twice. One of our local school, Wylie was making it's second straight trip to state

Something else that was different about going to state band as opposed to the sports assignments I'm usually going for is, I was writing the story too. It's really not a big deal, I figured this would be easy enough, just write a color story on what it's like to be there. And after talking to both the band director and one of the students who had gone on Wylie's last trip I knew I had a great story. From talking to them they all told me that last time as the band was walking off the field they knew they had done awful. The echo of the Alamodome had thrown off their steps and beat. This time, however, when they were leaving they felt great about their performance. So, I'm thinking "cool, this story is about the redemption."

So, I go sit up in the press box of the Alamodome and start cranking out my story while I was downloading my photos and waiting for the results of the competition. Well, when the finalists were announced Wylie hadn't made the top 10. That's ok I'm thinking, I can still work this, I mean last time they finished second to last, and this time they were happier with their results. At this point, all I needed to do was plug in a quote from the band director and add what place they were in and I was relaxing and watching football and the World Series from my hotel room the rest of the night! Yeah, if only it could have been that easy!

So, I call the band director, and say, "Hey, sorry you guys didn't make it to the finals, but I just wanted to find out where you finished." Me, thinking that they probably just missed the finals, he tells me they finished 23rd... out of 23 bands. So, after my jaw dropped and I screamed inside of my head, and realized I just wasted almost two hours writing a story that will never make anywhere outside of my computer, the band director went on to give me a couple of nice quotes about how it stings to finish last and that's not something you ever hope for but hey at least we made it to state. Well, that wasn't exactly what I was hoping for but, hey, it's too late now and I have another story to write. Well, about two hours later I had story #2 done and sent. It was tough, not the story, but trying to tow the fine line between calling them losers and sounding like an apologist. Well, I think I did ok with the story, given what I had to work with. And given my normally procrastinating nature, I've learned my lesson from ever trying to get ahead of things again!

Zero Week, Game 1

This year was kind of weird, for the first time in years, the first high school football game of the year for me didn't start on Thursday night, but rather on Friday. So, my first game came with a 250 mile trip south to San Antonio, where the season ended last year, shooting Abilene High again. Only instead of them playing Katy in the state championship, they were playing Belton in the 12th annual Texas Football Kickoff Classic at the Alamodome.

It was a pretty good game considering it was the first of the season. The cobwebs were certainly there both for me and the football teams. I missed a lot of shots I'll get later in the season. The first half kind of sucked photo-wise. After editing through halftime I decided to shoot the third quarter from the upper deck, something I had wanted to do during the state game but never made it up there.

I'm glad I went up there, I got a few nice shots and I really like the nice clean backgrounds you get from shooting so high, not to mention even shooting from the pressbox at high school stadiums you can't get up this high, so it's not a shot I'll get for at least another 11 weeks.

State Champs...

Abilene High football has always been special to me. When I was here interviewing for this job 10 years ago the 1999 season opener was the was one of the first assignments I shot for the newspaper. It was also the first season AHS had made the playoffs in 40 years. Since then, they have made the playoffs every year since.

After seeing this team at the beginning of the year there was no question that they had talent, however, they had plenty of questions too. In particular the defense. They were small and looked like the first big physical team they played was going to push them around. Well, it didn't happen the first 14 games of the season, and by that point I was doubting that they knew how to lose. Their final hurdle was Katy, the 2-time defending state champs.

The game started out pretty quick. Abilene High took the ball down the field and scored on their first drive and then their second drive. After that Katy started playing defense and kept the game close until the fourth quarter when Abilene High put things away. A final long touchdown run by running back Herschel Sims sealed the game. After that I spent the last 4 minutes of the game roaming the sidelines looking for celebration features, of which there was no shortage of them. As the clock ticked down I kept my eyes on coach Steve Warren, as giddy as he's been after winning the last few games I knew he'd be excited about the win, it was his first state championship. Plus the other big players were on the field kneeling the football and I'd find them later.

It was really cool following this team for the last 10 years. Talent-wise, I wasn't sure this was the best one, but as far as chemistry goes and playing as a team there was no doubt about how good they were, plus they just wanted it more. The team kind of came out of nowhere and finished as the only Class 5A team in the state to finish undefeated at 15-0 and was ranked #2 in the nation in a couple of different polls. It was the school's 7th state championship, but first in 53 years. Needless to say, they were pretty happy.