Photo Day

TigerBlog spent a little more than an hour yesterday in midday at the Jadwin Gym squash courts.

It was, for about 15 years, his normal spot around noon, pretty much every day. He'd go there and play his longtime colleague and friend Craig Sachson in their daily squash match, which, if he had to guess, Craig won probably 55 percent of the time.

It's been a long time since TB played squash — two knee surgeries worth. As TB wandered in and out of Courts 9 and 10, he couldn't help but think back to the glory days of lunchtime squash, often under the watchful eyes of Gail Ramsay and the late, great Bob Callahan. 

So what was the draw yesterday? 

Photo Day. 

It began at 7:30 in the morning with the football team and continued after that with cross country and then field hockey. When it was all over, TB asked photographer Greg Carroccio how many pictures he thought he and partner Ryan Samson took in all. 

His answer was 25,000.

And that doesn't count the number of pictures, probably an equal number or maybe even more, that were taken by the players themselves on their phones during the course of the day. 

For the freshmen, this was the first time they'd put on their game uniforms, which has to be quite a thrill for every one of them. For everyone else, it wasn't that same emotion, but it was a ton of fun for all of them.

There was this: 

And this:

 

And this:  

And this: 

 

And this:  

And, as TB mentioned, 24,996 or so others. 

Would you rather have the serious pose or the fun pose?  

TigerBlog contributed his own photos to the count while he was there with the field hockey team to get some behind-the-scenes content. The views that these photos get exceeds the number of pictures that were snapped.

If you have the chance to watch a team go through this, you'll see just how much joy it brings out. And there's always the "hey, can we come up with one more combination that we haven't had yet" feeling. 

When you think about college athletics from the outside, you think about the games, the championships. If you're like most fans, you probably think mostly about football and basketball, for that matter. 

When you've seen it from the inside, you know that the experience goes way beyond just that. The entirety of what being a college athlete is all about includes so many moments away from competitions, and it is those moments — such as a day like photo day — that elevates the overall experience to something incredibly special. 

And hey, even TB got into the mix yesterday.

From his place as an observer, he was invited into one of the shots with the field hockey team. He was told that he was needed for a video, after which there was a big group picture:

The field hockey team scrimmages today at 5 at home against Monmouth. Every athlete who had his or her picture taken yesterday will now get back to the more serious aspects of being on a college team. 

For 25,000 pictures worth yesterday? 

It was all smiles.