Photos, games will be revisited

It’s been more than two weeks since the sports world came to a screeching halt.

The NBA announced March 11 it was suspending its season. The NHL followed suit shortly thereafter. A day later the collegiate chips began to fall. Then it trickled down to the high school level as well.

Fifteen days later, many things have become clear — sports are a primary escape from the realities of life for most of us, and the games, especially the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, dominate the month of March for a large number of people.

Today would have been the first set of Sweet 16 games had COVID-19 not wreaked havoc upon the world.

Instead, we’re more than two weeks without sports, leaving us scrambling to find things to fill that void.

Some stories fell into my lap — 2016 JCHS graduate Megan Wellman posted on Instagram that her rowing career at Indiana University had ended; Fort Recovery standout Nick Thwaits suddenly finding himself experiencing a spring without baseball; the IHSAA and OHSAA hoping to still have a spring sports season and former Indian Tori Lennartz earning honorable mention all-American honors.

I asked for, and received a ton, of suggestions as to how to fill my sports pages. You may have seen a couple of sports retrospect stories since then. There are a couple more in the works, too.

Those who have reached out to offer ideas, thank you. There were some good suggestions, which I won’t necessarily reveal until they come to fruition, but a lot of them may take some time and legwork to pull together.

Then again, I have plenty of time on my hands.

But in the meantime, I still have a sports section that needs content.

So earlier this week — when I was strangely unable to fall asleep one night — I had a few thoughts of what to do.

One of those ideas accompanies this column.

A couple football seasons ago, a photographer colleague of mine published a series of photos each week from University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Detroit Lions games he’d cover. With each shot, he’d offer the details behind each picture, how and why he cropped it the way he did and any other pertinent information.

So I thought I would find a number of my favorite photographs I’ve taken, explain my reasoning for shooting them the way I did, what it took to obtain the photographs and what it meant to the overall stories.

Additionally, I came up with a handful of moments, games and performances that have stood out to me the most since I started here the summer of 2013.

In the coming weeks I’ll revisit some of my favorite photos, favorite games or matches I’ve had the pleasure of covering and some unbelievable performances over the last six-plus years.

After all, I’ve got some time to kill, so what better way than by taking a peek into the past.

Hope you enjoy looking back on these as much as I do.