I used to photograph and cover sports for the local paper. I fell into the job writing because the paper hadn't sent a reporter to the last game of a basketball season that I was shooting (not a single game won all year, not much interest) . As it turned out, the team won on a last second shot by it's star player. The stands were filled despite the dismal record and the game seemed more like a championship event than the only win of a very long season. I felt the evening deserved more that a couple of pics and a caption, so I wrote what I thought was a decent tribute to the hard work and effort that these young men had put in all year. When my editor responded by saying, "I didn't know you could write" it was high praise indeed.
And so began my career as a sports writer....part time and very limited, but a good initiation into the world of deadlines and fact-checking and quotes from coaches. It was fun for awhile, and the money was a bonus, but other than one near-perfect football season where I tried in vain to imitate the feel of a SI story, coming up with creative ways to cover yet another track meet was beyond my abilities as a writer. So after about 3 years, I decided to pack up my typewriter and concentrate on the budding farm here at the Garver homestead. I even sold my legitimate I'm a sports photographer telephoto camera lens because I was only shooting 3 or 4 games all year. I miss the lens occasionally, and I miss standing on the sidelines, but I don't miss the deadlines ...not even a little bit.
This past Thursday the high school football team decided to honor Veterans by donning camouflage uniform tops, letting anyone with a military ID in free and having a couple of local veterans toss the coin before the game. It seemed a good time to pick up my camera and brave the cold (she says with a straight face, this is California after all) to take a few pics of the guys for posterity. Without my fancy schmancy lens I was mostly relegated to shots of the sidelines, but those are my favorite anyway, so it was all good.
These are for you Sam.
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