Forget the score. That wasn’t the most interesting part of North Carolina’s win over North Carolina State basketball in the Dean Dome Wednesday night.
Because of the ACC Men’s Swimming tournament going on in Koury Natatorium (which is adjacent and connected by an underground tunnel to the Dean Dome) the photographers were unable to use our normal workroom. Instead, we had to work in the hallway outside the vistor’s locker room. At halftime, we could tell something strange was happening as security guards and finally an EMS crew began to converge on the vistor’s locker room. Initially we did not think too much about it; we thought a player was just a little dehydrated. An easy fix for a 19 year old.
Once halftime was over and I was sitting on the court watching UNC head coach Roy Williams and NCSU assistant coach Monty Towe conversing with officials near the scorers’ table. All the photographers thought this was strange as we expected it would be Coach Sidney Lowe having this meeting. But we looked over to the vistor’s bench, and, well, no coach!. It then became apparent to us all that it was not a player but Coach Lowe who the EMS came for. As we came to the realization, photographers from the Raleigh News and Observer and the Associated Press hit the phones immediately to call in what was happening and await further orders. Some had to go back and cover anything that was worth covering. Fortunately I did not have to as I’m shooting mainly stock imagery and don’t have to photograph events like these.
In the end Coach Lowe was okay. He was taken to the hospital but that was only about 1 mile away. He probably didn’t expect to be at UNC Hospital that night.
One of my PocketWizards however didn’t fare as well that night though. Once of the NCSU student managers was kind enough to knock over $7,000 in camera gear and break the foot off my PocketWizard MultiMax. Even better, they looked at my camera they knocked over and kept walking without giving an apology. Sheessh. The repair is going to be about $40 so it could have been much worse.
Here are pictures of UNC Basketball v. NC State from Wednesday night that I took.