Micah Strong of Clackamas is first to the tape with a time of 11.23 seconds in the boys 100 meter dash Apr. 2 in a dual meet against Oregon City High School.
I got a last-minute call from my buddy Craig Mitchelldyer last week to cover a track and field meet at Clackamas High School for the Clackamas Review and Oregon City News (which are basically the same paper).
It was a bit of a busy afternoon for me—I got the call at about 1:30, just as I was leaving for a brief appointment in Beaverton (a suburb west of Portland). After that, I stopped at home just long enough to grab my gear and head off to Clackamas (a suburb southeast of Portland). I left the track meet before it was over and got home about 6:45 only to remember that I had a meeting in Vancouver (a suburb north of Portland) at 7. I downloaded and filed my pictures as quickly as I could, then rushed off to the meeting. I got there a little before 8; it wasn't a big deal (I knew I could get there a little late). I got home around 9:30, ready for a rest.
A quick snap of Justine Belliveau for ID purposes became a spontaneous portrait. Belliveau won both the javelin and shot put events for Oregon City.
This was the first track meet I'd shot this year, and I'd never been to Clackamas High School before. I love shooting track and field—it has a whole bunch of very traditional, straightforward athletic endeavors. There's lots going on all the time, and a lot of opportunities for creativity. It does come with some challenges, though: because the events run concurrently, sometimes you have to be in two (or more) places at the same time. (That occasionally happens to the athletes, too.) And the events generally start as soon as the previous one is done, which means you have to pay attention to everything lest you miss an event you needed to shoot. The toughest part, though, for a photojournalist—at least in these smaller events—is that the athletes don't wear numbers on their uniforms. Sometimes it's tricky to keep track of who is who.
The facilities at Clackamas offered another, unexpected challenge for this photographer: in almost every event (or at least all the ones I needed to shoot) the athletes were coming straight out of the sun. It's hard to imagine how that could happen, but it's true.
[left] A diagram of the events I shot at Clackamas High School, produced with the help of the good folks at Google Maps. [right] In the perfect, golden sunlight of the late afternoon, the triple jump landing point was right in the shadow of the football scoreboard, the only shady spot in the entire stadium.
To be fair, the shot put was in a reasonably good direction. I held high hopes for the girls triple jump, which started pretty late in the afternoon with beautiful golden sunlight coming in at a low angle. And that was great for the run up to the pits, but the landing zone was right in the shadow of the football scoreboard. What can you do?
Track & Field at Clackamas HS Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Taking one for the team Sunday, May 27, 2007
Gresham High School students admire their work May 23 after waxing the first strip of hair off Coach Chris Koenig's chest in the training room at their school.
After the boys 4x400 relay team finished third at the state meet in 2006, Coach Chris Koenig agreed to let the four returning members—Peter DeBois, Gavin Reidel, Spencer Clark and Shaun Lambert—wax his chest if they won in Eugene this year. The team sprinted to the gold medal with a time of 3:20.37, a new school record.
"Either way, it's a win-win," Koenig recalls thinking when he agreed to the procedure. "If they win, it's great, I'll endure it. If not, nothing happens."
May 23, the bet came due. Armed with an electric razor and waxing kit loaned by a local salon, the relay team and more than a dozen others crowded into the tiny training room and waited for their coach.
The equipment may have been professional quality, but the technicians were not. In fact, the boys gathered for the event freely admitted that they had no experience with waxing whatsoever.
The few women and girls on hand gave instruction and assistance to the boys, and after a few tries they started making progress on the thicket that lay on the table before them.
After enduring 40 minutes of haphazard, inexperienced treatment that left his hirsute chest a patchy clear-cut, coach Koenig decided that the bet had been honored.
How will he top this prize if the team wins next year? "I guess it's the back," he says.
Gresham High School track and field coach Chris Koenig, before (left) and after (below).
To see Coach Koenig's reaction during the waxing, pick up a copy of the May 26 edition of The Gresham Outlook and turn to the Sports section.
Tumble on the track Thursday, May 24, 2007
Phil King of Pilot Rock High School trips over the last hurdle May 19 in the 2A boys 300-meter hurdles at the state track & field championships in Monmouth. He was close to the lead at the time, but the fall dropped him to eighth.
One of the schools I covered at last Saturday's track meet was Pilot Rock HS, located in the town of the same name south of Pendleton. They weren't one of the stronger teams at the 2A meet—the boys finished 27th out of 30 teams, the girls were 22nd out of 31—but they did have a strong contender in Phil King who qualified fourth for the finals in both the 110-meter and 300-meter hurdles.
Hurdles is one of my favorite track and field events because almost anything can happen. Take Canadian hurdler Perdita Felicien, for example, who was expected to win gold at the 2004 Olympics, but hit the first hurdle in the finals and recorded a DNF.
I don't remember what happened in the 110-meter event, but Phil finished eighth, well off his seed and preliminary times. But in the 300-meter hurdles, Phil was competitive, running neck-and-neck with the leaders. And I had my camera trained on him as he headed down the last straight.
Disaster struck on the last hurdle, just 10 meters from the finish line. Phil caught his lead toe on the hurdle, stumbled and fell. His first instinct was to get up and keep running, but I guess the fall hurt a bit, because he fell back on the track on his elbows and knees. A few seconds later, after banging his fist on the track in frustration, he recomposed himself, got up and walked across the finish line and straight to the first aid tent.
You can find all the results from the track and field state championships here.
OSAA Track & Field Saturday, May 19, 2007
Girls compete in the 100-meter hurdles Saturday at the 3A state track & field championships in Monmouth, Ore.
I spent the day covering the OSAA small-school track & field championships in at Western Oregon University in Monmouth (west of Salem) for a selection of papers from across the state.
This (right) is probably my coolest shot of the day. None of the athletes in this photo are from any of "my" schools, but it was a practice for the next event which did have one of my girls.
Unfortunately, when the "real" photo came around, the race was less competitive—the girls in the middle were well ahead of those in the outside lanes, and the girl I needed a photo of was on the far side of the track. It wasn't a big deal, because she didn't win, but it still would have been a nice photo for the paper.
I'm off to bed now, but if I have time later I might post a few more photos from the event.
Time for spring sports! Wednesday, March 21, 2007
It's time for spring sports in Oregon, which include baseball, softball, golf, tennis, and track and field. (Some schools have lacrosse too, but it's not an official OSAA sport.)
I figured I ought to get a bit of practice shooting track and field, and my local high school was considerate enough to arrange a meet this afternoon—and a nice, sunny day, too.
Athletes from Benson (6A) and Cascade (4A) high schools were at Lincoln, competing in the usual events. I'm definitely not in mid-season form, but with so many events, it's hard to trim the images down ...
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