Middle School Football!

I took pictures of about, ohh, like, ahh, ONE football game, at GFMS over my twenty-something years teaching Special Ed. kids there, you know, at GFMS (see above)!

True, I did go to a few more (after my own practices), but yeah, didn't make a habit of, you know, taking pictures ... Even though I did teach photography (ART 261) at the local Community College!

I was usually coaching something at that time, or running with some of the kids (or, you know, teaching at the college!) ...

First, it was soccer.

Yeah, that was CRAZY.

See, I never played soccer.

REAL soccer, anyways, no we just ran around during gym class, and kicked a ball around like, well, high school football players!

Our school didn't have a soccer team (at that time)! Maybe they did years later, but yeah ... Not sure.

Gym class was the limit of my soccer playing days, if you can even call what we did as, you know, SOCCER!

Didn't count.

But then they finally found a willing teacher, that actually played the game, KNEW the game, and yeah, knew what he was doing ...

Thank goodness.

No, I had the whole RUNNING thing down pretty good, but yeah ... That was why I started a "Cross-Country Club", or, you know, RUNNING CLUB, during the Fall, later on, and left soccer up to someone that actually KNEW soccer!

Yeah, since I coached TRACK in the Spring, yeah, this just gave me more time to run with kids! Even found a nice little "TRAIL" out there down by "The TATER HOLE" to run around on, yeah, running around the streets of Granite Falls with about twenty-five, thirty (or more!) middle school kids got to be a little CRAZY!

And yeah, DUKE POWER had all those trails out there "behind school" that worked perfectly for, oh, about twenty-something years! There was even "The Ian Dudley Trail", and that IAN DUDLEY HILL (steep!) that made the course the PERFECT place to train some of the best middle school runners in the county!

And yes, Ian Dudley, the son of our school "Media Center Coordinator", or, you know, Librarian, and lived just down the street, and showed me "THE GATE" that allowed access to all the trails out there!

Yes, I checked with his dad, and the local authorities, and yeah, off we went!

It was CRAZY!

But over the years it worked out just fine ... Did I mention that we won TEN track Championships? And even had our own "Cross-Country Team", when the county didn't even offer such a thing at the Middle School level!

Kids at Granite Falls Middle School just loved to RUN!

One year, I had 100 students (just 7th and 8th graders, at that time) line up on the football field on the first day of track practice!

After the first week, yeah, we LOST about twenty, but yeah, I never "Cut" anyone!

Except if THEY messed up, at practice, or in school, but yeah, that only happened ONCE!

I kid you not!

Oh wait! This is about FOOTBALL! My bad.

Yeah, so one year I took my camera, and LONG lens, and FINALLY got to photograph a football game ... I heard we had a pretty good running back that year ...

And yeah, he wasn't one of my students, and I can't even think of his name right this moment, but yeah, I knew him, and I played football back in high school, and even played one year over in Germany (in my THIRTIES!), when I lived over there with my former wife, who happened to be in the Army at that time!

Loved football.

So yeah, I had fun!

And came away with THIS shot!

I like it.

And yeah, what I REALLY like in this image is that ... You guessed it! "That player in the background, ahh, "flying" behind him in an attempt to tackle him! Yeah, number 47!

Perfect!

Well, THAT and yeah, those PINK laces! And PINK-ish socks!

Oh! And those PINK arm bands!

Yeah, The Annual Cancer Awareness Day!

Gotta love it!

Good for them! Remember, this was MIDDLE SCHOOL boys we are talking about!

Excellent!

But yeah, he was a big, powerful, running back, and yeah, if I am not mistaken, he went on to play football up at ASU! But like I said, his name slips my mind!

Sorry.

Hey! I like football, he liked football, PERFECT!

And yeah, I can now say I did photograph a football game at the school I taught (and coached) at for twenty-four, out of my twenty-five years as a teacher here in Caldwell County!

Just one.

And yeah, I actually did have a couple of my own students that did play football, but like I said, for many years I was coaching during that time, and never had the chance to go to any of the games ...

Except this ONE time.

And captured ONE IMAGE that I can now post on my website! That was how the game is played!

Get out there. and find YOUR sport, and see what you can come up with!

"You are what you photograph" ...

Yeah, somebody said that once ... Or something like that!

But yeah, I LOVED football, I played football, and yes, I can even say I PHOTOGRAPHED football ...

Works for me!

But yeah, I do like this image!

And he's a MIDDLE SCHOOL kid!

I wish I could have seen him play at South Caldwell High School, and, like I said, I do believe he played up at ASU.

That would have been fun!

Maybe I would have remembered his name!

Maybe I'll ask some of the "old" teachers that are still around GFMS, I go in once a week to help out with that C.I.S. Program they have there, you know ...

COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOL.

Somebody will remember him ... Good kid. Well behaved.

And yeah, a GOOD RUNNING BACK, as well.

A WIN-WIN.

I mean, just LOOK AT HIM!

Good kid.

Gotta love FOOTBALL.

And PHOTOGRAPHY!

And yeah!

MIDDLE SCHOOL.

Go Demons!