{"id":3025,"date":"2007-06-03T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-06-03T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/03\/behind-the-scenes-photos-of-2007-duke-lacrosse\/"},"modified":"2017-07-22T20:33:46","modified_gmt":"2017-07-23T00:33:46","slug":"behind-the-scenes-photos-of-2007-duke-lacrosse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/03\/behind-the-scenes-photos-of-2007-duke-lacrosse\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ned <\/a>
Ned Crotty <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Matt <\/a>
Matt Danowski <\/div> <\/div>
\"Casey <\/a>
Casey Carroll <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Brad <\/a>
Brad Ross <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Behind the scenes photos of 2007 Duke Lacrosse<\/h2>\n

Tuesday of last week, I emailed Art Chase, sports information director for Duke men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lacrosse, to explore the feasibility of going with the Duke men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lacrosse team last weekend for the Final Four in Baltimore, MD. Originally the plan for me was to go for Inside Lacrosse. But, after reviewing their budget, it was apparent they would not be able to afford flying and housing me up there. Looking at my budget, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford the trip either. Between hotels, gas and food, it was going to be at least $1,000. The email to Art was a shot in the dark to see if he had a photographer going up with him to Baltimore with the team. Ever since James Schaffer from Inside Lacrosse did a photo story on the team for their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Two Days In Durham\u00e2\u20ac\u009d article, I wanted to something with the team also. But I thought the chances of Art saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sure come on up with us\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, were about as high as me emailing head coach John Danowski, asking if I could play and him saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Obviously I would not be writing this post if Art said \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcno\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My original intent was to post photos and posts along the way during the weekend. But I was shooting more photos over the weekend than I could keep up with. So this is more for posterity than an update.We left Durham on Thursday around 11am. I actually did not take the team bus up but instead rode with Art and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153T.O.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in a rental car. That worked well as we arrived in Baltimore long before the team which didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t leave Durham until 4pm. Not to mention, other than one other player, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a soul on the team and wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really ready to be thrown in with a bus full of strangers.<\/p>\n

Before the team arrived, Art introduced me to coach Danowski in the hotel lobby. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nice arm in January against the Bears\u00e2\u20ac\u009d his said referencing a certain Colt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s QB with the same namesake. I expected him to promptly forget my name, but was proven wrong when Art, T.O. and I went to his (very swank) hotel room a couple hours later. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Peyton Manning, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s up?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, putting his hand up to give me \u00e2\u20ac\u0153five\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as we walked in. That would be my nickname for the rest of the weekend.<\/p>\n

Traveling with the team was a little nerve-racking for me. Never mind the fact I went to UNC. I felt like a lamb being thrown to the lions. I was careful though to not wear anything with Carolina Blue; I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t looking to get my butt kicked behind the bus. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m kidding of course. All joking aside, as I mentioned, other than Art and one defenseman, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know a soul on the team. For me, that makes it harder to photograph the team behind-the-scenes. For a while, I felt like an intruding outsider and felt eyes wandering my way questioning why I was there. In time, I started meeting players little by little; some I introduced myself to, some introduced themselves to me. One problem with this is I noticed I had a bias to take more photos of the players I knew and less of the ones I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. But in any case, I found the players and coaches very welcoming and friendly.In one instance, I had not yet received clearance to cover the team pregame in the locker room. Art was going to ask coach the morning before the game and was going to let me know if I had clearance. But when we arrived to the stadium, I could not locate Art anywhere to see if I had clearance, and my cell phone could not get a signal to call him. I saw coach however and asked him if Art had talked to him about me doing some photos pre-game. Given the wringer the guys were put though by the media in 2006, I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t too optimistic. But I heard a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Not a problem Peyton Manning\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while he put his hand up for a high five.As is known by most, Duke beat Cornell in the semifinals but fell by one in the national championship to Johns Hopkins. Even when Duke was down by one with 60 seconds to go, I still expected Duke to tie the game and send it to OT. From the start of the trip, I fully expected Duke to be taking the trophy back to Durham. But only seconds later, in what was a hard to comprehend moment, I saw players from Hopkins run out onto the field to celebrate their national championship. So just like that, it was over.<\/p>\n

The locker room post-game was emotional. It even had me tearing up which I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not afraid to admit. When coach was talking to the team post-game, a better photographer would have taken photos of the occasion. Sad moment or not, it is a part of history. But I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do; I just couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t pick up the camera. I was partially spent emotionally but mostly thought it was inappropriate to do at a time like this.<\/p>\n

The NCAA recently ruled that members of the 2006 Duke Lacrosse team would have an extra year of eligibility. Most importantly, that means every single player from this 2007 team, seniors included, can return in 2008.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Art, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Big Dino\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Coach Danowski) and all the players for their hospitality over the weekend. For Dookies, you aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so bad.<\/p>\n

2007 season photo gallery<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind the scenes photos of 2007 Duke Lacrosse Tuesday of last week, I emailed Art Chase, sports information director for Duke men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Lacrosse, to explore the feasibility of going with the Duke men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lacrosse team last weekend for the Final Four in Baltimore, MD. Originally the plan for me was …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[8,16],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3030,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3025\/revisions\/3030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.accphotos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}