Tyler Hansbrough wills the ball back to him.

Oh basketball….how much have I missed thou? 

Basketball is back in gear here in ACC land. I have been to two games so far at UNC. A couple I had to miss due to travel committments, or being previously booked for work. I am also missing their game on Thursday. The Thursday game has special significance because Tyler Hansbrough could break the UNC all-time points record. So imagine how bummed I am to miss that game. But such is my luck. 

Here though find some pictures from the two most recent games that I have photographed:

UNC Asheville vs. North Carolina Basketball photos (11/30/08)

Oral Roberts vs. North Carolina Basketball photos (12/13/08)

UNC head coach Joe Breshi on the cover of Lacrosse Magazine.

US Lacrosse, which is the governing body of lacrosse in the United States, commissioned me to do a portrait and ‘action’ shots of new North Carolina head coach Joe Breschi.  I did the shoot in two days.  The first day entailed coming out to a practice, and getting photos of coach in action.  Essentially, I stalked coach around during the day.  Keeping up with him during practice is probably harder than it sounds.  He is going back and forth do the different groups (offense and defense split up during practice).  

Then a few days later, coach and I barely found 15 minutes on a Sunday to get together and do a portrait out by the Old Well.  I saw barely because as the deadline for US Lacrosse approached, coach was very busy with alumni weekend activities.

Mark Staines spots Andrew Spyke. Look at all those plates.

I’m not working with the team as much as I did last year, but I have to admit, I do miss my time with them. So yesterday I went out to one of their weightlifting session. I’m a little embarrassed that I’ve only learned about half of the freshmen’s names so far. Last year, by the 2nd week of September, I had everyone’s names down. But today I had fun and enjoyed being around the team again and I’m getting all the names down. Treat of the day was strength and conditioning coach Melissa Glyptis giving us a preview of her Halloween costume.

Last year I never posted galleries of these behind-the-scenes, as I was hoarding all the photos until I put them into a book. But this year, since I’m not doing a large project, I’m okay releasing them. So here is a link to a gallery of pics from today.

Cover of 2009 ACC Basketball Handbook

The cover of this year’s ACC Basketball Handbook features North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough in a photo taken by me when UNC played Wake Forest.  Always nice to get your work on the cover of a magazine. (and pay the bills too)

Also inside are a good number of my photos used for a story on Duke’s Coach K.   You can find a copy in many bookstores, or you can order online.

This reminds me…this is going to be the last year of Tyler.  That is hard to believe.  The last 3 years with him flew by.

Also inside are some fantastic photos by basketball photographer extraordinaire Bruce Schwatzman and some writings from various authors including Tim Peeler at NC State.

UNC head coach Joe Breschi

If you are lacrosse fanatic like me, then you know that this summer, Joe Breschi was hired to be the head coach of the North Carolina men’s lacrosse team.  Before UNC, coach Breschi was at Ohio State University, quietly but quickly building a solid program.  However, it is UNC that coach Breschi calls home, having graduated from UNC in 1990.

Before coming to UNC, I did not know much about coch Breschi, but I had the feeling that his players really liked him.  But now, having met him, I can see why he is “a great coach but an even better person”, as senior Bobby McAuley said it so well to Inside Lacrosse.

Lacrosse Magazine (the publication of US Lacrosse) commissioned me to do a portrait of coach Breshi, as well as to get some “action photos” of him.  The portraits haven’t been done, but I am not going to post them here anyway until after US Lacrosse uses them.  I don’t want to usurp their publication.  But here in this posting are some action photos.

Last year, I obviously attended a lot of practices.  I do mean, a lot; so I know what they were about.  Going out Friday showed me how much the UNC program is turning around under Breschi’s tenure.  The practices were intense, but I could tell the guys were having a lot of fun.  One new thing this year is that jersey numbers are not automatically given out.  Players have to earn the right to have a number.  Until then, your practice jersey is blank.  I spoke with Emmit Kellar and he echoed my thoughts:  This new system creates a great sense of competition among the players.  As I understand it, numbers are given out on a “first earned, first served” basis. If you want to reserve your number, you have to prove yourself during practice that you deserve it.

When I went out, Bobby McAuley earned his number on this day,  and you can obviously see the excitement.

Bobby McAuley earns his jersey number

Woo hoo.  We got some space on ESPN.com  You can find the link here.  They change the content frequently, so if you miss it, here it is:

Hey strangers.  I had the misfortune of having to take a long and relaxing cruise to Alaska, thus the radio silence.  (but don’t worry, a 5 hr slide show is on the way.)

I wanted to draw your attention to the latest issue of Inside Lacrosse (August 2008).  As you know, last year, I did a year-long photo essay of the varsity men’s lacrosse team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  It was a ton of work, but very gratifying to do.  One of the most gratifying results is a 9 page spread that Inside Lacrosse magazine, where I am a frequent photo contributor, published in this latest issue.  I had been in talks with Inside Lacrosse’s art director James Schaffer since as early as September or October about the possibility of doing a spread in IL.  At the time, I didn’t know if the project would even be successful or would reach fruition. Also, the story could always be displaced by other stories if a major event broke in lacrosse.

So other than my discussions with Inside Lacrosse and UNC sports information director Dave Lohse, I told not a soul that the photos could eventually find their way into the printed version of IL.  I told not even the coaches or players.  I only told them about 2 weeks ago when I knew the magazine had literally gone to the printing presses with the article included.

I’m really excited about the end result.  The editors decided to publish 9 pages for the story, a good 2 to 3 more photos that I ever expected.  Also used was a photo on the table of contents page.

If you are a UNC Lacrosse fan and want to order a back copy, you can do so on this order form.

Of course, you are a subscriber anyway, right?

A public thanks to James Schaffer, Keely Knop, John Jiloty, Jon Brand and Matt Can at Inside Lacrosse for their help.

So… there is an elephant in the room that I have not pointed out yet, so let me get the hardest part and say that UNC did lose in the first round of the NCAA tournament, upset by Navy at Fetzer Field. Given that it was my alma mater, it was obviously hard to take.  That said, the NCAA tournament is a cruel mistress. Only one of the sixteen teams that enter exit happily. An exit in the first round isn’t much easier than an exit in the last game. Given that a loss means an end of the season, losing in the tournament in an abrupt way to end your season. 

Even though the season is over, I’m going to still be working on the project. No, not in the Hillary Clinton never-say-never sense, but because, hey, I have a lot more time on my hands after the loss. So I’ll be doing some minor stuff with the guys who are around for the summer. But I’ll also sifting through literally thousands of photos that I took over this last year to pull out the cream of the crop. It’s going to be a huge labor of love. Too bad I can’t train that elephant in the room to edit and caption all the photos I have. 

Saturday I’ll be flying to Ithaca with the Duke team for their game against Ohio State hosted by Cornell University in the NCAA quarterfinals. I went with them last year and had a great time, so I’m looking forward to this experience. I was worried if I would be the persona non grata as the UNC guy, but instead I had a very welcoming and pleasant experience with them last year. 

But stay tuned; more is to come out on the UNC project. I’ve been working on some photos to highlight stick stringing as well as the canines in some of the players lives. Those two posts, among others I hope, I will be on Inside Lacrosse. 

(updated 5/20/08 to fix some spelling errors)

Wow, things have been busy.  I’ve been taking more photos than I’ve had time to post them.  There are a lot of things that I still need to post.   Stay tuned for the following to eventually be posted:

• UNC Lax vs. Hoftstra
• UNC Lax vs. Duke @ ACCs
• Duke Lax vs. St. Johns

Here is a link to my latest post on the Inside Lacrosse blogs.  It covers all of last week: From practice to game day against Hofstra.  I omitted things that I learned, because all of these are pretty much inside jokes that only the guys will get.  That, and I only learned two things.  So here goes, drum roll please:

Things I learned:

• Milton Lyles needs to use two hands.
• Shane Walterhoefer and Sean Burke are messing up my creativity and photography.