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football / photo / weekend — Comments Off
11
Dec 11

Catching up

The Army Navy edition. We’ve spent the day traveling back home, and so here is as good a place as any to post a few pictures from our big day at the game.

First, here’s a panorama of the field during the march on by the cadets of West Point. Click to embiggen:

Teaching them young with the lightweight .50-caliber machine gun:

Marine One comes in for a landing with the president and vice president:

The traditional “exchanging of prisoners” in the pre-game. The cadets and midshipmen had spent the semester with their opposite academy as exchange students.

Navy’s Kriss Proctor, a prototypical option quarterback, scores the first of his two touchdowns of the day to give Navy their first lead. Proctor’s mother didn’t want him to go to the Naval Academy at first. Her father had spent 18 months as a German POW during World War II. He talked her into it, sat for a few years behind one of the best quarterbacks in modern Navy history and here is now:

Army quarterback TRENT STEELMAN (the Internet requires his name to be spelled this way options to Raymond Maples.

Maples is the first member of his family to go to college. His bio says he’s the first person from his high school to attend West Point.

Steelman’s dad lettered in football at Appalachian State University, his mother has run dozens of marathons and his sister lettered in soccer at Wofford College. Jocks. Also, one of his grandfathers served in the Air Force during World War II, he had an uncle in the Army during the first Gulf War. A great uncle was an interpreter at Nurenberg Trials during World War II in Germany. West Point offers incredibly rich bios.

My favorite player on this Navy team, diving into the end zone. Alexander Teich is a fullback, but he’s smaller than I am. He plays fullback the right way, though, and was a lot of fun to watch run. Football tough, the senior is hoping to join the Navy SEALS after graduation.

And now a few crowd shots:

“Nine dollars for a beer?” asked one happily annoyed fan. “Is there a discount for veterans?”

The vendor could only say “It ain’t me, blame Daniel Synder.”

Daniel Snyder, owner of the Redskins and this park and blamed for most everything else around Washington sports, can take the heat.

Malcolm Brown scores for Army, keeping the Cadets in the game:

And now, more fans:

adventures / football / video / weekend — 1 Comment
10
Dec 11

The Army-Navy game

Attending this game was a birthday gift from my lovely bride. This video features two cheers from the cadets and the mids on the field during their march on. It also includes includes one of the finest, and sadly least utilized traditions in college sport, the singing of both alma maters.

And it was a historical day.

This was the first time the classic game had been played inside the Washington D.C. beltway. It was also only the second time that both the president and vice president attended. Navy extended their series-long win streak over Army to 10 games. The Middies chanted “Ten more years!”

Mike Lopresti, writing in USA Today’s special section on the game:

(H)ere come Army and Navy. In a restless sport of frequent doubt and tumultuous questions, they have more answers than anyone. They know what they want to do, they know why they’re there. And they know what’s ahead.

“Everybody on that field has chosen a very unique path in their young lives,” Army coach Rich Ellerson said last week at a news conference.

They will play Saturday with nothing on the line but pride and honor and a sense of achievement, and that will be quite enough. For these Cadets and Midshipmen, each and every day, that is enough.

[…]

It matters because how many other college football Saturday afternoons go untouched by money or excess or misplaced perspective?

It matters because, in an ego-driven sports world, the television screen is seldom so filled with men who understand selflessness.

Attending this game is a great experience. Go if you can.

Alabama / Auburn / football / photo / weekend — Comments Off
27
Nov 11

Catching up

Tons of pictures this week, so they are broken up into two posts. This one covering the Iron Bowl, the previous one touching on some of the Thanksgiving festivities.

First, the ever-popular panorama of Jordan-Hare Stadium. Click to embiggen:

Here’s a tilt shift of midfield, late in the game as Alabama prepared to kick off to Auburn:

Fans:

What is wrong with this picture?

Oh. Well then.

Many more pictures can be found in the November photo gallery.

Alabama / Auburn / football / Friday / video — Comments Off
25
Nov 11

The Iron Bowl, from a different POV

I break this video out about once a year just because it offers a different perspective.

We’re in this video. Dressed in blue. We are tiny blue dots in one wide shot. Not for that, but for what you get out of the whole video, this is worth watching through to the end.

War Eagle.

Auburn / family / football / friends / memories / photo / Samford / Thursday — Comments Off
24
Nov 11

The best game I’ve seen at Jordan-Hare

Holiday travels this week, so we’re padding this out with videos and memories. But there’s a theme! This is Iron Bowl week after all. So let’s talk about football all week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Honestly, this entire week on the site has been an excuse to work up to this picture. (Also published, and well-received, on dearphotograph.com.) Since Thanksgiving is a day of family and friends, I’m putting it here.

The photograph was taken in the spring of my freshman year at Auburn. My mother brought my grandmother, and her lifelong friend to campus to visit. They toured the campus, saw the arboretum, took photographs with Tiger VI and even got to “sneak” inside the stadium.

They played a little tackle football, with my mother tackling her mother while Ms. Lucy was the quarterback and referee.

I love that picture, and this year at homecoming I took it into Jordan-Hare Stadium to take the picture of the picture. That’s almost precisely from the same spot, looking to the south end zone.

And what makes it especially nice, this new photograph, is that the two teams playing at homecoming were my alma mater, Auburn, which I love, and my employer, Samford University, of which I am also fond.

This is a charmed life, and so precious little of that has to do with football, but it is a neat way to mention it.

At the big Thanksgiving lunch today I offered the blessing for those that were there and those that cooked this delicious meal. I asked for us to take all of our free minutes of the day to consider the things for which we are thankful and I asked for our friends and loves ones who couldn’t be with us to be watched over and cared for in their absence.

On this day of giving thanks, it is foolish and whimsy to consider something as silly as football, even in a place where it stains the culture as it does here. We have so many things for which to be thankful. I hope you find yourself in a similar situation. And I want you to know I’m thankful for you — be you an old friend or casual search engine visitor — have a lovely day.