Injuries

This was a blog I had been looking forward to doing for KMOV. I sent out, sort of on a hunch/whim, an email to the team, asking for them to reply with their name and a list of all their injuries they had sustained while playing rugby. I was surprised with the amount of replies I got back, because I'm not sued to people responding to emails.

I was pretty shocked by the amount of severe injuries. I sort of assumed everyone would say concussions and sprains, but there were several pretty bad injuries. It was amazing, frankly.

At first, I wanted to turn it into some kind of infographic, thinking it would look good and convey all the information. But after talking to Jim, he sort of convinced me that maybe a long form narrative would be a better way to tell the story. So that is what I did. I tried to list in order of severity the injuries, giving names for people who had the bad ones. I sort of tried to make it read well with my own opinion on some things, and my thoughts and shock toward some of the injuries. I think that it gets the point across, this is an incredibly dangerous sport.

I was also fortunate in that a couple of the players reported not having any injuries. I added that into the story, and I feel like it gave it an extra dimension, which I liked. I do wich I had had more pictures, but I didn't feel comfortable reusing pics I had taken and posted already, so I went with a picture of Tim Brown getting his hand looked at at Ruggerfest. I think that that worked out alright.

Truman Game

The first home game I had the opportunity to attend. Not much was different from Ruggerfest. There were a couple things that I learned from the last game, like keeping the stats myself WHEN THEY HAPPEN. When I was at Ruggerfest, I didn't think to do that, I was too worried about the pictures and audio. Then I discovered how hard it is to get stats like that after the fact. Plus, it really helps the flow of the game report when you know who scored when. So I had my little notebook with me, and stopped what I was doing and recorded the scores and names of people.














I also had a better idea of when things were going to happen and where, so I was able to position myself around the pitch more. Then I got a fun surprise. Eric Wright, the head coach, told me the refs don't mind if I wonder out on the field, as long as I stay out of the way. And the players for both teams didn't seem to mind either. So I had a much better position to take pictures from, though I quickly backed away when action flowed my way. I'm not too worried about getting hit or anything, but conversely, those guys aren't too worried about hitting my camera...


The sun was a nice out that day, and I had some pretty good pictures. Plus, I think I was able to write up a better report of the game and how everything went than I was last time. At the end, they asked me if I wanted to play in the third half, which is like a scrimmage after the game. If I could go back in time, I would have worn shorts and a shirt I didn't care about so that I could, because I think that would have been an interesting perspective to write from, but I was in jeans and a polo, so it was a no go.

Ruggerfest

I'm still recovering from last weekend. I drove to and from St. Louis twice, both times early in the morning going, afternoon coming back. The sun decided to shine like it hasn't in a long time, and I didn't think to bring sunblock, so I'm crisped. And I made a huge judgment error in only checking out the Mirantz for Saturday and not Sunday as well.

But covering Ruggerfest was amazing.

I got there, and I don't know what it was, maybe that this is the fourth week they've seen me around, maybe it was that I made the effort to wake up and get there before the game started, or even get there at all. But the team completely accepted me. They clapped my hand when I got there, chatted and joked with me. None of them was bothered by the recording equipment I was using, nobody tried to stage anything or hold back. I had free reign on the sideline with my camera. It was like a whole other world.

I have never had a reporting experience where people stopped looking at me as a reporter and just treated me as another guy out on the field. It's like I had become a part of their team. And even better, I was really, really pleased with my pictures I took. I wish I had taken more, is my only wish, and I took nearly 700 pictures between the 2 days. I didn't have problems with the lighting, put myself on the correct side of the field to account for the sun, got low, got high, ran ahead of plays to get them coming at me. It was the best I've done as a photographer in a long, long time.

I did have some difficulty getting audio while simultaneously taking pictures. There were several times I would be recording something and think, "Oh, I should shoot this," and by the time I had my camera up to shoot it was over. And Vice Versa. But in all, I was very, very pleased with how it went. And I learned a lot about the game to boot.

I look forward to blogging about the games. It will be the first time I've ever reported on an actual game, and it will be challenging, but I think I'll have fun.

I will post the video when I have finished it.



Yet again, the blog has cropped the edges. My apologies.

Practice Three, Video

This will probably be the last practice I cover, because Ruggerfest and the Truman game are the next two weeks, and then they are finished practicing. On a whim, sort of, I decided to take a video camera to this practice. I had the notion that I would break all the rules (and tried to) and give an idea of what practice is like.

The problem is, there is a very good reason that the professors demand we used tripods. I ran next to the players and through the players and everything else, and though I was willing to accept a certain amount of shake, it was just too shaky. So I switched it up, and tried running with the players, but trying to get ahead of them, and then stopping, turning around, and trying to capture up close the players getting tackled. I had some success with that.

Then I tried to get shots of them kicking, and they had this fitness test that I shot that I felt I edited together pretty well. The problem with what I shot, and how the video will turn out, I think, is that there just isn't enough interview and voice in it. I felt I managed to get a pretty decent feeling of the flow of practice, though. Tried to remember my basics, like exit frames and getting space before and after the event I wanted. Got low on the ground and shot between legs. They even let me get on the sled, and I held the camera down low pointed up so that you could see inside the scrum. In all, it was probably the most fun I've had with a video camera in a long time.

I will post the video when I finished editing it.




My apologies, the blog is cropping the sides of this video.