COLUMN: Remembering the bits and pieces of reporting

YOU SHALL NOT PASS.

Opening a sports column with a Lord of the Rings quote was certainly not on my bucket list, but I’m not going to waste an opportunity when it’s presented to me.

Why do I open with this phrase? Because it made an improbable appearance in one of the best Bibb County high school games of the year so far, actually.

Northeast traveled to face Dublin last week in a clash of undefeated teams in Region 2-A Division I, giving me the chance to visit the iconic Shamrock Bowl for the first time. The stadium was nice, and the people there were even nicer, chatting with me about Northeast’s prospects and finding a stool for me in the home press box.

It was a great game, too, a gritty defensive showdown that probably shouldn’t have been as close as it was but still entertained spectators. The Raiders struggled to move the ball in the first half and, though they only lost 17-7, failed to score on offense all evening.

Back to the Gandalf line, though. It didn’t quite make a striking or main-stage type of appearance, I’ll say, but I noticed it from my perch in the box looking down into the bowl when I glanced at Dublin’s sideline.

A fighting Irish defender’s jersey had come up above his pads, revealing a yellow plate instead of black chest gear. On that yellow chest guard, in large and very legible block font, was that phrase: “YOU SHALL NOT PASS.”

I smiled at that and wondered if the player was a big Tolkien fan, where he’d gotten the set of pads from — were they homemade? Did any other players on the team have the same phrase under their jerseys, or maybe even different quotes?

Either way, the pads proved to be prescient. Northeast already doesn’t pass often, but they weren’t able to string together much of anything against the Fighting Irish through the air that night.

The pads, besides making me grin, also made me think about all the bits and pieces I’ve had the pleasure of gathering in my sports coverage this year. The little things always stick out to me — it’s the small stuff, things not actually in the paper we faithfully put together each week, that are some of my favorite memories.

All the way back in April, before the paper even truly existed, I was still heading to sports events to try and get to know folks. This meant some playoff baseball coverage, which is how I found myself in the sun taking photos of the Rutland
Hurricanes.

A friend of a friend at a paper in Blackshear asked for some photos of the Hurricanes’ opponent, the Pierce County Bears, so I was pulling double-duty despite not having anywhere to publish an actual story.

Double-duty then turned into triple-duty when a fan approached me and asked me to take pictures of her son — she gave me his name, number and spot in the batting order, the whole ball of wax.

Could I have said no and focused more on my assignment? Sure. But I was trying to practice my photo ability and didn’t want to say no, so away I went. It was pretty fun, too, and rewarding when I sent the mom the photos. “You remembered!,” she texted me back.

It was wholesome. Though it had little to do with my actual coverage of the event, I remembered it.

A much less cozy but far funnier anecdote came later that month at the baseball championship between FPD and Brookstone at Luther Williams Field. It was fun to watch a high school game with serious stakes being played at such a neat historic field. Places like that are always better-suited for the big games.

The funny stuff happened when it became clear that Brookstone’s entire team, save for one or two players, had bleached their hair. It doesn’t sound like anything notable, but it becomes a focal point when everyone on the team takes the field with platinum blond manes.

Almost everyone, that is. When the team’s sole brown-headed hitter stepped into the box for an at-bat, a few of the Vikings faithful let him have it.

“Hey buddy, why didn’t you bleach your hair with the rest of the team?!”

Though FPD would lose the title series, highlights like that heckle make the key games more worthwhile.

There’s plenty more I remember from this year alone, too. 

A Central touchdown against Southwest that shocked both teams at the end of a half — insignificant in the grand scheme of the game, but a fun moment. Talking to officials in the press box about where they went to high school, how they got into officiating. Even this weekend, the Princeton University band cracked jokes in their halftime show about uploading Jimmy Carter’s consciousness to the cloud and making him president again.

Stuff like this makes the job for me. I enjoy sports journalism because writing about sports means the world to me, yes. But I also really enjoy tidbits of intrigue like that. Simple as they may be, they keep things interesting.