Spring Break
In someone else's sneakers
Heather Sprigler
Issue date: 1/12/09 Section: Forum
Since I became a U-News photographer in August 2007, I have had the opportunity to attend every sporting event, every organizational gathering and every function UMKC has had to offer-or at least those that requested our presence.
I have seen formal functions, informal disasters, speakers with no audience, masses of vendors, etc. But there is nothing quite as intriguing as watching our men's basketball games this season.
Last season, I took on basketball all by myself, much to my own protests. I almost hate sports. I really feel like they are pointless. It's the same plays every year, just with different people.
However, the rest of society seems to feel sports could be the center of the universe. This semester, I have tried to put away my impatience and ignorance and actually try to learn something about sports starting with men's basketball.
In August, when we had dorm move-ins, I thought our men's basketball team had skipped out. I did not realize there were only a couple of members from last year's men's team that remained. We pretty much got an entirely new team.
When basketball season started, I went to the "Show and Tell" event at the College Basketball Experience in the Power and Light district only to realize I didn't recognize anyone except Dane Brumagin and James Humphrey.
All I could think was how difficult it was going to be to learn all of the new players' names to make photo captioning easier.
As this season has progressed, I have become more depressed at the thought of covering the men's basketball games. It seems like we play every game just hard enough to lose by a few points. It's incredibly frustrating for me to take wonderful shots of Fred Ford or Spencer Johnson racing down court only to have our writers report we lost again.
The entire team looks amazing on film until we get to the scoreboard. It's enough to make an unemotional girl cry. Worst of all, I just learned how to read a stat sheet.
I have seen formal functions, informal disasters, speakers with no audience, masses of vendors, etc. But there is nothing quite as intriguing as watching our men's basketball games this season.
Last season, I took on basketball all by myself, much to my own protests. I almost hate sports. I really feel like they are pointless. It's the same plays every year, just with different people.
However, the rest of society seems to feel sports could be the center of the universe. This semester, I have tried to put away my impatience and ignorance and actually try to learn something about sports starting with men's basketball.
In August, when we had dorm move-ins, I thought our men's basketball team had skipped out. I did not realize there were only a couple of members from last year's men's team that remained. We pretty much got an entirely new team.
When basketball season started, I went to the "Show and Tell" event at the College Basketball Experience in the Power and Light district only to realize I didn't recognize anyone except Dane Brumagin and James Humphrey.
All I could think was how difficult it was going to be to learn all of the new players' names to make photo captioning easier.
As this season has progressed, I have become more depressed at the thought of covering the men's basketball games. It seems like we play every game just hard enough to lose by a few points. It's incredibly frustrating for me to take wonderful shots of Fred Ford or Spencer Johnson racing down court only to have our writers report we lost again.
The entire team looks amazing on film until we get to the scoreboard. It's enough to make an unemotional girl cry. Worst of all, I just learned how to read a stat sheet.
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