The athletic director for Lanai High School, Rod Sumagit, is an old
friend of mine from college days at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. If I
recall correctly, he was part of the Hale Wainani resident staff, where I lived
all 4 ½ years of my college life. When he became A.D., we ran into each other
often, especially at events in which Lanai was participating with Lahainaluna,
such as Cross-Country, Paddling and Wrestling. He asked if I could get shots of
his athletes and, being from a small school myself, I didn’t mind doing so.
So this year, with Lanai participating for the first time in 8-Man
football and reviving a football program that had been dormant since the
mid-1950’s, Rod was excited to get his program some recognition. He had asked
if I could take photos at the football games played on Maui – however, because
of my already hectic schedule covering Lahainaluna sports, it would be
difficult for me to make any promises.
Today was one such day when my schedule would allow me to catch their
game. They were scheduled to play Kihei Charter at 1pm at War Memorial. I
didn’t let Rod know ahead of time because, again, I did not want to commit and
then disappoint him if I couldn’t show up. Anyways, at 12:40pm, I headed over
to the Stadium with my Nikon D300 and Sigma 50-500 in hand, whipped out my
Athletic Pass and tried to get in. Unfortunately, the people manning the gate
said I could not use my pass since Lahainaluna was not participating in the
event. I had to pay $6. Darn it. I didn’t have $6. I don’t usually carry cash
with me, period.
So I decided to run some errands and shoot bowling. In the meantime, I
Facebooked Rod and let him know what happened – that I tried to make it but
couldn’t get in. He responded by asking me to meet him at the gate and he would
get me in. Unfortunately, I was gone.
At bowling, I decided to just take a group photo and not do any actual
competition photos. There was still time, so I Facebooked Rod and let him know
I was heading back. When I got there, he actually paid the $6 for me to get in!
I thought he just had to give them my name and they would let me in, but I
guess they insisted on getting the $6. In hindsight, if I came after halftime,
I probably could’ve gotten in for free – but I wanted to get up to Kamehameha
early for the football game that night.
Anyways, I got to shoot the end of the 2nd quarter and into
the third quarter. Tried to get as much shots as a I could of the players, the
action, the coaches and the fans. It was the middle of the day and sometimes,
shooting with too much light can be a bad thing too. Many of the shots were
overexposed and I spent quite some time trying to get a decent exposure but it
was all over the place. My friend James Sparke is the AD at Kihei Charter, so I
tried to get shots of his kids as well.
Unfortunately, a Kihei Charter player got injured on the field and it
was taking quite some time for the trainers to assess (both schools are
relatively new to Football). At that point, I left to go home and rest up for
the football game.
Here are some of the shots from the game:
ADDENDUM: On Monday, I was contacted by a reporter at KITV news who had
seen the pictures and wanted to incorporate them into a story they were doing
on Lanai’s historic football win. The
story was broadcast that night! It was neat to see my name on each of the
photos they flashed on the screen.
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