Emerald Bowl
Christmas is my favorite time of the year so I was a little disappointed when I they scheduled the Emerald Bowl the day after Christmas. But I left town the day after seeing as many family and friends as I could for the holidays and headed back into San Francisco to shoot the game. But oh the shooting conditions couldn’t be any worse… and things started off bad even before I made it into the stadium. It was pouring rain outside and when I pulled into the media lot my name was not on the parking list. This happens every now and then, and at first the guy was going to let me through when he saw my other credentials, but then the man in charge came over and made me turn around and leave the lot. This didn’t help my mood obviously as now I had to walk a further distance in the rain with all of my gear hanging off me. Once I made it inside, I was happy to see that my co-worker who was shooting the game saved a spot for me. But it was a weird setup to say the least… we were in the dugouts with rain falling everywhere… and let’s just say I was a little nervous plugging in my laptop to an extension cord that appeared to be soaked in water. Basically what I’m trying to say is that the shooting conditions weren’t pleasant. But in the end I had the front page ESPN photo for the night when USC quarterback Matt Barkley raised his arms in the air after throwing a touchdown pass. It was very “Favre-esque” to say the least so I knew if USC went on to win the game there was a good chance the photo would be used… and thankfully it was because it made all the annoying occurrences of the night a little easier to handle.
