Art Chase at Duke University sent me an ominous instant message of just “call my cell”. I thought at first I was in trouble, but Art asked me if I could photograph some “guests” that would be with the new Duke Football coach, David Cutcliffe. I wasn’t jumping at the chance to do it, because the shoot was going to be at 8pm Saturday, just one hour before the 9pm tip-off for the Duke vs. North Carolina basketball game that I was also photographing. Usually its a stressful game to set-up for and shoot, and I thought I would be a basket case around 8pm. But Art has helped me a lot in the past so I said “sure”. As for who the “guests” were, I assumed it was rich alumni and donors and didn’t give it a second thought.

Eli Manning, me (the shorter Peyton), Peyton Manning (photo by Art Chase/Duke Athletics)

Before every game there is a press meal, and during the meal, Bob Rosato from sports illustrated mentioned that both Eli and Peyton Manning played for coach Cutcliff and that one of them had been spotted. I may not have gone to Duke, but I can put two and two together. So I walk over to Art and ask him, “Does one of the guests that I’m photographing tonight happen to have the same first name as I do?” He laughed, said “yes”, and I said I was now an even bigger basket case now.In the end, it was fine. I was even able to slip to the other side of the lens and get a picture of me with the Manning brothers. They are pretty nice guys. It was a room full of only a few people, so it wasn’t like they had to put on a show. I think it reflected who they really are — pretty down to earth.Also walking around was a guy whose voice seemed very familiar, but I could not place it. I turned around to see that Matthew McConaughey was also there in the coach’s office. So man, I never thought I would be meeting the Manning brothers and Matthew McConaughey before this game. Crazy how things happen. (btw, Matthew, also a very nice guy)

Side note, if you are a photographer, and sports information director asks you to take a photo of an event, but is vague about who will be there, take the assignment. Two years ago Bruce Winkworth at NC State asked me to photograph an event at a NC State baseball game. He said there would be a special guest there, but could not say who it would be. I couldn’t do the event though as I was booked for another assignment. I found out later that the guest was none other than Alex Rodriguez.

I’ve been truly overwhelmed by my workload and have not yet had a chance to post the photos from the games I photographed recently.  The following are on the way:

• Duke W Lacrosse vs. Maryland (not posting unless special request)
• Duke M Lacrosse vs. Maryland
• North Carolina M Lacrosse v. Cornell
• UNC M Basketball v. Wake Forest
• UNC M Basketball v. FSU

UNC fans paint themselves blue for the annual Duke vs. UNC game

I finally have posted photos from the Duke vs. UNC basketball game. This is a game full of emotions and, as you can see above, body paint!That turned out to be a long night for me, as is typical when Duke and UNC clash in either in Chapel Hill or Durham. The game was at 9pm, but I arrived at 5pm to start setting up remote cameras, laying out various cords that I would need and other set-up. I left the Smith Center around 2am. So it turned out to be about a 8-9 hour day for me and many other photographers.

After the game, Bob Rosato (Sports Illustrated), Jeffery Camaratti (UNC) and Kevin Cox (Getty Images) went for a late night snack at Hector’s just off Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. The UNC vs. Duke game is always a huge basketball game in America. It was of course broadcasted live on ESPN nationwide. Steve Kirshner, athletic communications contact for UNC basketball, said that there were 64 photographers covering the game! That is an amazing number, even if we were talking about the National Championships, and reflects the great interest in this match-up. I’m a pretty lucky guy to be able to sit on the floor for that game.

Even though it is only exhibition at this time, basketball has finally begun. Not saying that football is bad, but I enjoy basketball way more than football. For one, it’s inside. No worries about how will the light be, will I need sunscreen or maybe a jacket. Is it going to rain on us? Everything is much more controlled and there are less surprises in regards to elements. Probably another reason I enjoy it more is because I’m better at photographing it. Last week I fired up my Speedotrons for the first time in the Dean Smith Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. They still worked which was a relief.

Here is a link to some UNC Basketball photos from when they played Shaw last week.

In September, I photographed the shots that would be used for the NC State men’s basketball poster. Chris Alston in marketing and promotions wanted to have action photos of the players mirroring action photos of players from the ‘83 team. 2008 marks the 25th anniversary of the national championship team with Coach Jim Valvano.

The players were given a copy of the photo by Chris of the ‘83 player they were going to emulate while I set up the lights to strobe the court. For each player, I met quickly with him to look at the photo with him and discuss strategies to getting the right shot. We took three or four photos and compared what I had on the camera vs. the photo. Usually I needed to talk with the player again to have him move his angle or hands and retry. For the most part, the photos came out pretty good. The poses were not perfectly the same, but given the time pressures we had, I though it was a pretty solid job.

Kudos to Chris Alston and staff for coming up with this idea. I thought it was a really creative way to remember the the ‘83 team. Thanks to the players too. They were eager to do the best they could to honor the ‘83 players and do the best job possible. They were patient and accommodating.

Below is the poster. The ‘83 player is in B+W behind the current player.

UNC Mascot Ramses

Just two months after I graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill I was driving to my parent’s house in Virginia. They live in a rural area where the roads are full of twists and turns, not to mention animals. Just before midnight as my car was at the top of a hill about to head down I spotted an animal in the road. My (bad) instincts took over and I swerved the car to miss the animal. What happened after that is a blur. It probably only took a few seconds, but it felt like an hour. I lost control of my car as it fish-tailed down the road. Whether I was going forwards or backwards, left or right was a mystery to me; I had no sense of where I was going. At one point I saw that my car was going through a patch of kudzu, glowing bright green from my high beams inches from them, but I could not see the road. For those briefs seconds, I thought my life had reached it’s end. Moments later my car came to a rest. The engine had cut off but the CD player was still playing Sugar Ray’s “Falls Apart” (ironic title given the circumstances and that part of the lyrics are “runaway, runaway”). I cut the ignition off immediately worried the car would explode. After I turned the ignition off I realized my car was on laying on the driver’s side. Still worried the car would explode with me in it, I quickly unbuckled the seat belt, climbed up to the passenger’s door, pushed the door up and walked onto the top of the passenger’s side of the car. Now I tried to figure of which side of the car I should jump from, not sure if the car would fall down on me once I jumped. I think I finally decide to jump towards the side of the car where the bottom faced out. My hope was the wheels would help keep the car from falling back and even if it did, the wheels would help prevent the entire force of the car from falling on me. After all was said and done, I learned my car went down an 12 foot drop from the road rolling about 2 revolutions in the process.

A few days later I cried as what had happened really crystallized in my head. I was real close to death or being paralyzed. Despite this, I have always told my family and close friends that the wreck was the best thing that ever happened to me. I used the money from the insurance to buy my first place when I was living in Washington, DC. But more so, I learned lessons in life that I could have never learned otherwise. I learned not to take life so seriously and appreciate every day I had. Before little things had bothered me but not anymore. Being able to walk on my own, see my family and friends were what really mattered to me. I thanked God for teaching me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life and promised Him I would always remember it.

This weekend was another reminder of the lesson I learned. After being upset at the UNC men’s basketball team loosing to Georgetown, we all learned the next day that Jason Ray, who portrayed the UNC mascot “Ramses” died in New Jersey after being hit by a car outside of the hotel where he was staying. Ray was in New Jersey with the UNC Basketball team for the regional being held there. Ray’s death reminds us what loss really is. Sports in the end are trivial; they are just games and aren’t life and death. That UNC game loss looks small now. I never met Ray; I only saw him backstage at basketball games. But today I pray for him and his family.

CBS Sportsline listed Jimmy V’s celebration after winning the NCAA Tournament, now 24 years ago, as the number 2 most memorable moment in college basketball.

… [O]ne day you look up, see the date and realize Jim Valvano hasn’t coached in 17 years, hasn’t been alive in nearly 14.

Maybe it seems strange because we still see him on TV every once in a while telling us not to give up, not to ever give up, a visibly sick man who would succumb to cancer less than two months after delivering his legendary speech. Either way, 14 years feels like a long time, particularly because it means it has been 24 years since Valvano made the most famous jog by a coach ever.

If that was #2, I can’t wait to see what #1 will be.

You can read more here.

Ben McCauley

Forget the score. That wasn’t the most interesting part of North Carolina’s win over North Carolina State basketball in the Dean Dome Wednesday night.

Because of the ACC Men’s Swimming tournament going on in Koury Natatorium (which is adjacent and connected by an underground tunnel to the Dean Dome) the photographers were unable to use our normal workroom. Instead, we had to work in the hallway outside the vistor’s locker room. At halftime, we could tell something strange was happening as security guards and finally an EMS crew began to converge on the vistor’s locker room. Initially we did not think too much about it; we thought a player was just a little dehydrated. An easy fix for a 19 year old.

Once halftime was over and I was sitting on the court watching UNC head coach Roy Williams and NCSU assistant coach Monty Towe conversing with officials near the scorers’ table. All the photographers thought this was strange as we expected it would be Coach Sidney Lowe having this meeting. But we looked over to the vistor’s bench, and, well, no coach!. It then became apparent to us all that it was not a player but Coach Lowe who the EMS came for. As we came to the realization, photographers from the Raleigh News and Observer and the Associated Press hit the phones immediately to call in what was happening and await further orders. Some had to go back and cover anything that was worth covering. Fortunately I did not have to as I’m shooting mainly stock imagery and don’t have to photograph events like these.

In the end Coach Lowe was okay. He was taken to the hospital but that was only about 1 mile away. He probably didn’t expect to be at UNC Hospital that night.

One of my PocketWizards however didn’t fare as well that night though. Once of the NCSU student managers was kind enough to knock over $7,000 in camera gear and break the foot off my PocketWizard MultiMax. Even better, they looked at my camera they knocked over and kept walking without giving an apology. Sheessh. The repair is going to be about $40 so it could have been much worse.

Here are pictures of UNC Basketball v. NC State from Wednesday night that I took.

First, could anyone have written a better story for the night that the Reynolds Coliseum court would be dedicated to Coach Yow? If you missed it, NC State beat the North Carolina Tar Heels, then ranked #2, on the newly christened “Kay Yow Court”.

In N.C. Coach a Shining Light, the Charlotte Observer has a wonderful story that is a must read.

Kay Yow has cancer.

The worst kind. Stage 4. Metastasized. The kind that doesn’t go away.

But Wednesday when Yow — in her 32nd season as N.C. State’s women’s basketball coach — walked into her office, she made it seem like any other day.

She admired the three vases of fresh flowers decorating the reception area, chit-chatted with members of her staff, then went back to her office, the swishing of her nylon warm-up pants rubbing, escorting her down the hall.

Yow, 64, hadn’t come from home but from another round of chemotherapy, a weekly ritual that can’t cure the cancer but can, perhaps, prolong her life.

An afternoon practice session approached as Yow sat in a black leather chair in her office, holding a tissue to wipe her runny nose.

“I want to live,” Yow said, pausing. “There are things I want to do.”

The university announced that the floor at storied Reynolds Coliseum would be named the “Kay Yow Court”, in honor or their women’s basketball coach. The formal ceremony will be tonight as the Pack take on the number 2 ranked North Carolina Tar Heels at 7pm.

[From gopack.com story]