40 years of photographing pro football

 

The irony of being a high school football bench warmer is I’ve spent more time on pro football fields than any of the super studs I backed up on the depth charts. 

In my three years as a very scrawny lineman for the Niwot High School Cougars, I played in 10 varsity plays, six of those in one game that was already a blowout. Several of my teammates aspired to play college ball and maybe someday go pro. I never played anything other than intramural flag football in college, but I did make it to the pros – as a photographer. 

May 19 is the 40th anniversary of my first professional game. It was a USFL game between the Denver Gold and the New Jersey Generals played at Mile High Stadium before 29,139 fans. Denver won the game 28-24, beating a team owned by Donald Trump and featuring Heisman Trophy winners Doug Flutie at quarterback and running back Herschel Walker.

I covered the game while working on my college internship as a sports writer/photographer. I wasn’t assigned to cover the game. I did it because I wanted to. I asked, and no one told me no. I did the same thing again three years later at my first newspaper job in Minnesota. I made my NFL debut when I photographed a preseason game between the Miami Dolphins and the Minnesota Vikings. I was thrilled to be there around the likes of coach Don Shula and quarterback Dan Marino. 

In 1991, I was working as an editor in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and photographed a game of the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks in the fledgling World League of American Football. That made three pro games in three pro leagues. That fall I had the opportunity to photograph my beloved Denver Broncos in a game against the Phoenix Cardinals. Denver won the game 24-19 behind the arm of quarterback John Elway. I got to experience what it was like to get hit by one of his passes that he threw out of bounds. Ouch! 

Years later after moving to Texas I took advantage of opportunities to photograph a couple preseason games of the Houston Texans. The first was against the Buccaneers and the next against my Broncos. It wasn’t until I became the editor of the Fort Bend Star in 2016 that the world of professional sports was thrown wide open for me.

I became a season credentialled photographer with the Houston Texans and the Sugar Land Skeeters, an independent league baseball team that is now the Space Cowboys and the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. I also got to photograph many Astros games, including the World Series in 2019.

Photographing professional football, however, is a lifelong dream and something I enjoy doing very much. A lot of regular fans, players and others recognize me as the cowboy photographer because I usually wear my cowboy hat on the sidelines. My friend Bill McCaughey and I have been covering the Texans and the UFL’s Houston Roughnecks since then. He writes the stories, and I take the photos. The Eagle makes the fourth newspaper we’ve done this for, and we remain humbly grateful for the opportunity to keep doing it.

I often get asked what it’s like to be on the sidelines of an NFL game. In short, it’s a thrill. There is nothing like being there where all the action takes place. I usually arrive an hour or two early and circle the field during warmups, not so much to watch the players, but to interact with fans, staff, security guards, etc. I’ve made a lot of friends that way over the years. I don’t get to interact much with players and coaches, but some of them recognize me and say hi.

I’ve become friends with Andrew Johnson, the guy who plays TORO the mascot. Then there is Randy, Ryan, and the others on his support team. They’re a hoot! I’m friends with four of the last five Texans Fan of the Year winners. The fans who get dressed up and rarely miss a game are some of the most fun-loving, passionate, and compassionate people I know. They take their love of the game to a new level and often volunteer at team and charity events.

Another group of people I get asked about are the cheerleaders. I’ve gotten to know a lot of them over the years. I’ve come to see them in a different light and have a lot of respect for them. Yes, they add a lot of sex appeal to the game, but the girls are not the airheaded bimbos that some would make them out to be.

Most of them are smart, college educated professionals working in many high-skill jobs. They are generally more physically fit than most of the players and they exert more physical effort on gameday than the players do.

This Saturday I will be at the Roughnecks game in Houston when they host the Michigan Panthers. It somehow seems fitting that I started my football career 40 years ago photographing USFL teams and, unless the Texans grant me credentials again, this is potentially my last pro football game, appropriately featuring a former USFL team.

I hope my pro football photography career continues for a long time, but you never know. I was always able to cover these games because I sought out the opportunity and no one said no. It’s proof that if you pursue your dreams and passions that they can and will come true. The point is unless you ask, the answer will always be no. “Yes” sounds really good to me!