Saturday, November 24, 2007

Down On the Bayou

I meant to post this about a month ago, because these two events happened just over a month ago, but I got kind of busy with the World Series, and then after that, just never bothered to write about it...

Anyways, about a month ago, I went down to Louisiana for a weekend of football. I flew in on a Saturday morning in order to cover a night college game between the LSU Tigers and the Auburn Tigers in Baton Rouge. Then on Sunday afternoon, I covered an NFL game between the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons at the Superdome.

Needless to say, this was the first time I have been down to Louisiana to shoot football. Quite frankly, I'm not sure why I was asked since you'd think there'd be someone else within 900 miles of New Orleans and Baton Rouge who could go and handle these games. I guess everybody local happened to be tied up that particular weekend... or I'm just that good ;-)

Like I said above, the first game I shot was a game between Auburn and LSU in Baton Rouge. From TV, I know that SEC football is life down there, so I was very excited to make a visit to LSU's Tiger Stadium - aka Death Valley. I knew it was going to be a madhouse, so I planned on getting there 4 hours early. So four hours early, and traffic was backed up 10 miles away from Baton Rouge. Crazy. I eventually figured out why as I got closer to campus and the stadium, as thousands of yellow and purple clad LSU fans were just milling all over the place jamming up all the streets and sidewalks. Yup, SEC football is life.

Now, if you didn't check out my link about Tiger Stadium aka Death Valley got its nickname from the fact that it is one of the most hostile and intimating environments for a visiting team. It is super duper loud there, which is helped by the fact that most of their games are at night where the locals have plenty of time to liquor up (as the pre-game traffic jams prove. Seating 92,000 fans, legend has it that after a game-winning TD against Auburn in 1988, the geography department's Richter scale got a detectable reading just from the crowd reaction. In 2003, ESPN recorded a decibel reading of 117 (also against Auburn). Needless to say, this was the loudest (and most exciting) stadium that I have ever been in, and this includes Penn State and Ohio State. I'm sure it helped that the game I shot was a hard-hitting, back-and-forth game, that ended with a game-winning TD with 0:01 remaining in the 4th quarter....







Quite frankly, Death Valley put every other venue I have been to... including large and proud venues like OSU and Penn State... to shame. I will admit, is has been difficult to get geared up for going back to NU games after getting a taste of "Saturday Night in Death Valley." Heck, it made it tough to get super excited about the Saints game the next day. Crazy talk, considering the Superdome can be a rocking venue too. The Saints played a great game and sent the locals home happy with a victory.







So that was my trip to Louisiana and my first taste of SEC football... I cannot wait for the opportunity to go back to Death Valley or any other SEC venue for that matter!

1 Comments:

Blogger Chris Humphreys said...

Very cool shots!

Bet you wish you had been to the LSU Arkansas game instead though!

Can't believe you've getting carted all over the country to shoot these things!

Hey next time the AP sends you out to shoot a UC Santa Barbara game let me know! LOL!

7:35 AM  

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