No Football Friday's for me...

Me shooting UT/UGA football

This is going to be weird. I've always, as long as I've worked in TV been a part of high school football coverage. Almost always it meant shooting and a lot of times I was the producer as well. I'm not doing that this year.

Covering High School Football was always fun. From the time I started in 1988 (yeah, I'm old), I always was working games. Sometimes, on my own and sometimes with a reporter but always working.

It's funny, I've covered well over 150 college and pro football games in going on 22 years, but high school games were always special. I don't know why, they just were. Maybe it was because you can go wherever you want to on the field. Maybe its because everyone at the game is always happy to see you I don't know.

Me shooting Falcons/Bears game/Courtesy: eric hager

We always made it fun. In Jacksonville, we did a 15-minute show. I was one of 4 photographers and it was always the same 4 of us. We did some crazy stuff in that time (early 90's). The Sports Director, Dan Hicken, would come up with a theme for the night and we had to get something to do with the theme as a highlight.

I'll never forget those times. We did the obvious, ref night, sideline judge night, cheerleader night etc. But the funniest was probably prom night. The station rented tuxedo's for the 4 of us and we had to introduce our own games with a "prom" date. (You had to be there to laugh) We had a recurring character, brought bands in to walk through the studio, all kinds of crazy stuff. Heck, the show open had video of all of us in it...Craziness!

We did games in Nashville, but it wasn't nearly as much fun. In Atlanta, we tried to make it fun. I came up with a tamer version of what we did in Jacksonville, it lasted a couple of years...2003-2006. They actually let us use the helicopter for a couple of games each week. Nothing says cool like landing on a back field at a game in a helicopter and getting an escort into the stadium. It was a blast. Of course the genius' that ran the TV station decided we didn't want to compete and nobody cared about High School football, so the show got cancelled.

Nowadays, I'm still in TV, but I'm not shooting anymore. I'm not Sports producing either. This particular Friday and 2 of the next 3, I'm on the News Assignment desk. Sure, I'll watch. I'll look in and see what we do, but I'm not participating.

I know that I have gone on record saying that I don't miss shooting and for the most part, I really don't. I was unemployed last football season so it didn't really count, I no longer am. It's this time of year that I'm going to have to get past. 20-plus years of being either the main or one of the main Sports shooters and/or producers is hard to put out of my mind. I will. I'll get past it. Right now it just seems weird. I guess after a few weeks and having the feeling in my shoulder will remind me that it is all good, I just have to get through this first week before I can get there.

To wrap things up...enjoy this clip from an old HBO Show...Not Necessarily the News...Thanks YouTube: