Governor’s Cup College Football

So Saturday I shot Shorter College Hawks’ home opener and my first college football game since the NAIA Championships last December. Feels good to shoot college ball again. For extra fun, this game was the Governor’s Cup. I have no idea what that means. Except if you win, you get a big shiny cup and a grip-and-grin photo op. And if you lose, you do not get a big shiny cup and a grip-and-grin photo op.

Yes, this game had all the awesome of your college generic not-division-one college football game.

There were touchdown runs…

which of course led to some very graceful touchdowns…

Well, shit. I guess it doesn’t matter if it’s a run, a dive or tripping ass over tip over your own feet, as long as it gets the job done.

And with touchdowns come celebrating touchdowns, which are photos that sports editors JUST FREAKING LOVE no matter how good they actually are.

And of course if you’re going to have all that, you’re going to have a guy who returns a kickoff for an 80-something yard touchdown, and who knows if he’s really that good or the defense was taking a nap.

And even better if the kid has a last name like Hazard that leaves room for nearly endless amounts of sports puns headlines. Put the name with the fact that he’s actually kinda good, sports editors everywhere collectively cream themselves.

And of course none of this would at all be possible without PASSING, which is an important element in any football game. Even my gramma knows a football game without passing is almost guaranteed to be one big clusterfuck.

Of course, catching the pass is also important. I hear this can be harder than it looks.

A big hurdle in catching passes are the people who don’t want you to catch the pass. Sometimes they knock you over before you can even try to catch the pass, resulting in yellow flags going everywhere because you just got some illegal pass interference. You know, if the refs saw it.

Sometimes if you’re lucky (or not lucky), passes get intercepted.

See that little gloved hand peeking out of the far right edge of the photo? That’s the guy who was supposed to get the ball. Bummer dude.

The best theory to approach passing in football is the If I Can’t Have It No One Can way.  So if you can’t catch it, don’t let the other guy either.

There are two good ways to interfere with passing.

1) The sort of look like an accident plow into offense as he flies through the air and get hit with the ball move

and

2) the pick the offense up, throw ‘em over your shoulder and carry them away from where you think the ball is going to land. And then slam into the ground with the fury of a thousand suns move.

This is usually made possible by That Really Intense Guy On The Line.

And what would a football game be without That Really Intense Guy On The Line?

It’d bee a few dogpiles short of a football game, that’s what.

After some dogpiles you might need a pep talk from some coach or another. Pep talks are always better if you have a cool haircut (see far left and far right for examples).

Or you know, maybe you don’t need a pep talk, because you have FREAKING INSANE FANS.

But sometimes the photographer misses them and gets the other ones instead. Oops.

But it’s ok because we got some Semi-gratuitous Dudes Jogging Off The Field Almost In Slow-Mo photos.

These are great for file photos for later stories and also for filler for photo galleries. Sometimes you don’t really need them, but such as some days when you only have time to shoot about a quarter of the game but the bossman wants about a bajillion photos in every gallery, these work as great filler.

And speaking of great file and filler photos, lets talk about the ever-classic Player With Giant Headphones.

Well, that’s about all there is to say. Chances are, if the coaches let the player put his sweaty nasty head all over said coach’s headphones to talk to God or whoever is on the other end of the line, chances are that sweaty nasty player is important. Take their picture.

Anyway. It wouldn’t be any kind of respectable badass football game at all if there weren’t some ass kickin’ INJURIES.

Or maybe he just got a cramp. Who cares. If it bleeds it leads, sugarpot.

Chances are in any kind of school sport you will eventually be approached (or flagged down) by some players or another who never get in the paper and they’ll call you ma’am and be all nice and ask if you’re making a photo gallery on the website if you’ll take their picture for the photo gallery. And because they were nice and stuff you oblige and tell them to look badass and then you take their picture and sometimes put it in the photo gallery so they can email the link to mama or whoever our west. It’s a good way to make friends.

Alternately, sometimes you’re squatting on the sidelines about right next to some guy with a strange haircut who is all sweaty and muddy and generally badass, you you’re trying to get a photo of all that sweat and mud and badassness, and I’ll be damned if he sees you then just won’t stop cheesing for the camera.

OH WELL.

And you know, since it’s the Governor’s Cup game, there’s bound to be a big shiny cup somewhere…

… and with that a grip-and-grin photo op, complete with local politician just sort of standing there.

Ok then. Yay football.

Oh yeah. Shorter College won, for the third year in a row, 42-19.

And here’s a big ol’ link to the story complete with embedded everything:

http://rn-t.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Hawks+soar+to+win-+Shorter+claims+the+annual+Battle+for+the+Governor%E2%80%99s+Cup%20&id=3590785-Hawks+soar+to+win-+Shorter+claims+the+annual+Battle+for+the+Governor%E2%80%99s+Cup&instance=sports_page

Now… my dog tracked dog turd in from outside and all over my freshly-mopped kitchen floor, so I reckon I oughta mop the floor. Again. Then I’m going to unload the dishwasher. Maybe. Really living it up on my day off, yessiree…