Walking Down a Different Road

So I've finally quit twiddling my thumbs and hoping my wishes come true and silently pleading for something to happen. I've taken a step, a definite, resounding step, in a direction I know I want to go in. I'm interning now with John to learn all about education abroad. Well, probably not "all about", I do only have a semester after all. But still, it feels good to start something that gives me hope that I'll enjoy life after graduation.

Not quite sure how I'll break it to my parents yet that I'm not exactly actively pursuing the career they spent so much money to help me learn, but I can take a certain amount of solace in the knowledge that it's not really a complete waste. In fact, calling it a minor waste may even be going to far. The more I talk with John and Kip and get a chance to take off my rosy colored glasses and get a real view of the beast that is international admissions and exchange, the more I realize that you very nearly have to BE a journalist if you want your program to thrive.

I have to research where in the market things are heating up, what fields are a hotbed for the program I'm sending students abroad in. I have to know how to col call people and interview them, make partnerships. I have to understand how to sell my bran, how to promote it, how to put the word out. Maybe Strategic Communications would have been more useful, but at least with convergence I know how to present all these things in a fashion that might be more useful in the near future.

At least, I'm telling myself all this is useful. If I'm being honest, I haven't actually done much yet in the way of learning. Aside from getting a feel for what I'm about to undertake. I have been keeping my ears open, something I habitually do because of my major, and I'm getting a feel for the flavor of what this new world will entail. I've worked to bring in students and see what it's like to help people get settled here, but really, that's not the beginning or middle of the job, or necessarily the end. That's the bonus, seeing things come together. What I want to learn is all the nitty-gritty. And I'm optimistic that I will.

Finally I get excited about the work I'll be doing, something that hasn't happened since freshmen year. I'm looking forward to the possibilities that are opening in front of me. Am I giving up everything I already know? No. Perhaps foolishly I keep telling myself that I'll be doing photography on the side, because that's one passion Karen introduced me to that I'm just never willing to give up. But now I can try and find a way to use all these skills that I enjoy and am enthused about, rather than looking ahead and grimacing at the stressful future I see on the horizon.

Education Abroad, get ready for a journalist to take to the streets.

End of the Season

With the end of the Rugby season at hand, I started thinking about who all would be leaving the team, and what positions they would be vacating. There were only 6 seniors graduating (well, 5 plus Eric Wright, who technically already graduated, and Mike McMillon, who will graduate next December), so I decided it was a small enough amount that I could do miniature profiles on each senior, where they are going, and say who would be replacing them.

It took some doing to get them to all talk to me, because it's finals week and they had a lot of things to do. However, after a lot of work, I was able to sit down with them and get them to talk a bit about what their plans were. I found it interesting to see what each person had planned. There were a lot of different answers to that question.

I was also able to find who the most likely candidates were to take their positions. In some cases, like Wright and Hojnowski, I was able to find out who would take their place on the team as well as in the "coaching staff" (head coach and forwards captain respectively). However, in Ryan Becks case, the president of the team and a fullback, there was no clear hear to either spot. There was the same problem with McMillon for his place as a fullback. This was because those two rotated in the position, and not many other players have played the spot.

I found it interesting to talk to the players. These guys were basically the players most comfortbale talking to me. I wonder if that was a result of their age or not. I was thinking about covering the team next year on my own time, and I still might give it a shot, but having to make all new relationships with the team might be a bit more than I want to volunteer the time for, especially when I'm not getting paid or credit. I suppose that might be to lessons learned right there. When it comes to sports reporting, every year some new bonds have to be forged with the team, and respect and trust have to be earned every year. And two, sometimes doing what you enjoy isn't worth the time when you aren't getting paid. It's a sad lesson, but never the less true, and something that may need to be painfully learned next year...

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.

Second Practice

The second practice went significantly better than the first. I think probably because the "head coach" attended this one. He's a player who has already graduated, but is still eligible to play, and will be leaving after this semester, name of Eric wright.

He's very approachable. Willing to explain positions or plays or what each part of practice is for. He's very natural around me, doesn't try to clean up his speech, doesn't try to talk up his team. It's actually a lot of fun talking to him. I think the other players saw how he was acting around me and took his lead, so everyone seemed more comfortable on the field. Some players even came up and talked to me.


Now I'm beginning to wonder how practices should be covered. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the game to be able to tell if someone had a good practice or not. I read Dave Matter for my Missouri Football needs, and he tends to pick a player or a position to report on, but I feel like that is because everyone else is reporting on the team as a whole. He has the ability to go into detail. But I'm just starting to cover this team, and I'm worried I wil miss something. So I just tried to cover the mood and atmosphere of the team, as well as give an idea of what I learned, because part of the blogging was to try and explain parts of teh game to give readers an idea of how easy or hard it is to get into the game.

On a more technical aspect, I took a couple more risks this time. I laid down in front of people who were kicking, walked out on the field in the middle of scrimmage and let them run by me as I took pictures. Just things I would not have tried last week. Even if I'm not positive what I'm covering, I am definitely feeling more and more confident in what I'm doing out there with the team.