Brad Ross
I am a little behind on this. But a couple weeks ago, UNC hosted Duke lacrosse at Kenan Stadium. It turned out to be a gully washer with rain that never let up the entire time. My photos honestly didn’t come out much better than the weather. My glasses kept fogging up making it difficult to track the ball. So maybe that is why I wasn’t in a hurry to get them up.
Providence Day could not contain the Chapel Hill High School Tigers lacrosse team.
I’m embarrassed to say that while I’ve photographed a lot of lacrosse, I have never photographed a high school game. I’ve only been doing the D1 college scene. But now that I’m shooting for US Lacrosse now, they are encouraging me to hit the high school scene. This is consistent with US Lacrosse’s philosophy of covering lacrosse from the pros to the grassroots for their publication Lacrosse Magazine.
I took a look at the schedule for Chapel Hill High School and saw they were playing at 10 am at Duke, just before the Duke vs. Georgetown game. I was pretty stoked because usually all varsity high school games are at night under terrible lighting. So to see a day game was a treat. Second. it could have worked out any better having the game just before the Georgetown game and just 20 yards away.
Any way, here are the photos from the game that I took.
edit: I have to take back my first sentence. I did back in 2002 while living in Washington, DC take pictures at Gonzaga high school to test out a new lens I bought.
Cover of March 2009 Lacrosse Magazine with Ramses and Blue Devil (photo: Peyton Williams/US Lacrosse)
OK, admittedly I was more lucky than skilled to get this cover. US Lacrosse wanted a picture of two rivals for a photo shoot and lucky me lives right in between UNC and Duke, two of the biggest rivals in America. So getting this cover this month was a product of geography than my skill. Still, I’ll take a cover when I can get it. Anyway, here’s the story behind it:
US Lacrosse emailed me and said they wanted a picture “Ramses” and “The Blue Devil” together. From the moment I heard about it, I knew this would be a fun shoot; something very different than what I normally do. Little did I know that the hilarity would ensue with the initial emails between the mascots. The Blue Devil for example has his own email address and never uses his real name in email. Ramses enjoyed taking some jabsat the Blue Devil when responding to emails. For example this email came across on Feb 4th:
“If the current schedule doesn’t work for a Blew Devil in training, then we might still be able to work in a time at Dook on Friday afternoon. I am currently trying to find transportation to Dook for Friday afternoon…”
Ramses and Blue Devil take jabs at each other (photo: Peyton Williams/US Lacrosse)
The shoot would be held at Duke on Friday, Feb 6th. I was a little worried about Ramses. Dressing up as the UNC mascot on Duke campus (and less than a week before the UNC at Duke men’s basketball game) is what only the suicidal consider doing. Confounding my worries was that we were doing the shoot less than 30 yards from where the Duke men’s lacrosse team was practicing. Amazingly it went better than I thought. The person dressing up as the Blue Devil met with the person dressing up at Ramses. He took him to a place to change and the Blue Devil and Ramses walked with each other to the shoot. I thought that was pretty classy of Blue Devil to have his rival’s back. Proof that while the schools are rivals, there is a lot of respect between the two. The lacrosse players, while certainly doing a double look at the sight of Ramses walking on their field, never gave him any grief. In fact, Duke laxer James Goldberg worked with Ramses and Blue Devil to show them how to line up and hold their hands for a face-off.
Despite the planning that went into the shoot, I was unprepared for one surprise: Once the guys were in character and had their mascot uniform on, they would not be allowed to talk. I had planned on having them suggest ideas to me. That was obviously out of the question. Thankfully I had sketched out ideas the day before so I wasn’t totally unprepared. Still, having a one-way conversation with two models is awkward. But they were good sports and did a great job doing everything. On the plus side, I didn’t have to worry about them blinking or making awkward faces.
My only regret? I forgot to get a photo of me with the two mascots.
Special thanks to Erin Cobb, Coach John Danowski, James Goldberg, Mike Rock and of course Ramses and Blue Devil.
Tyler Hansbrough waves to the crowd during the final game of his career at the Smith Center
Has it already been four years? That time flew by. It seems like only yesterday that this kid Tyler Hansbrough arrived on UNC’s campus. Then on Sunday I saw him give his farewell speech to the Carolina faithful during his final game at the Dean Dome. It finally hit me. Tyler Hansbrough has finished his career at the Dean Dome. Not that we are going to forget him any time soon: His jersey will soon be hung from the rafters to honor his accomplishments.
The game was bitter sweet. It’s always fun to do a Duke vs UNC basketball game, but knowing the regular season was ending was a total buzz kill. A highlight though of the day was getting to see Sports Illustrated photographer Bob Rosato. Had a chance to have dinner with him and a couple other photographers after the game.
Here are some of my favorite photos from UNC vs. Duke Basketball that I took Sunday.
