Rogers
By far my favorite perk of my job is constantly having a front-row seat to watch a great game of some kind on multiple occasions on a weekly basis. I’ve had the genuine pleasure of being on the sidelines for a lot of fantastic games lately, and it’s often hard to remind myself that I’m there for work instead of pleasure.
A prime example of this happened last week with the Habersham boys basketball team’s game against Dacula. After covering a, well… to put it nicely, a less than competitive game between the same two teams last year where Dacula star LaMariyon Jordan almost single-handedly outscored the Raiders’ entire team, this time I got to witness one of the best games I’ve seen in my time covering sports here.
Down by double digits late in the third quarter, the Raiders mounted a furious comeback in the fourth to notch a narrow win over their region rival. It’s times like those where it’s a little too easy to forget why I’m there.
After Mekhi Mawdesley hit two free throws with about 15 seconds left in the game to give Habersham a three-point lead, I did a quick 180 and pumped my fist as I paced a few steps. That’s nothing out of the ordinary for me watching clutch moments happen in sports. There has been a lot of stressful pacing and joyous fist-pumping for me in the past few months watching my favorite baseball team and college football team win their respective championships.
The key difference with those moments though is that when I’m at a sports bar with my friends or in my living room by myself, the list of immediate responsibilities is empty.
As I celebrated near the corner of the sidelines inside the Habersham Central High School gym, a slight tug on my neck from the camera strap reminded me that I was still on the clock.
Don’t get me wrong, this is in no way, shape or form a complaint about the fact that I currently get paid to watch sports from the best seat in the house. Once I realized that being a history major wasn’t what I wanted for my life two years into my college career – something that maybe should’ve happened after I made a D in the first history class I ever signed up for – my immediate thought for deciding what was next was “Well it would be pretty cool to get paid to watch sports. I do that all the time for free right now.”
I can confirm that it is in fact “pretty cool.” So much so that I have to often remember that it’s a job and that I should probably be taking pictures or logging notes instead of celebrating like I did last Friday night, or angrily walking around like I did a couple weeks back when the boys team was on the wrong side of a close game against a great Buford team.
Despite the distractions, I still end up with a lot of photos that turn out quite nicely. You can turn a few pages to the B section of this edition to enjoy for yourself.
We make no bones about that fact that we give you the facts, objectively and as they are, even on the sports pages. But we support our community teams and are behind them in their endeavors.
Cody Rogers is a staff writer for The Northeast Georgian. Email him at crogers@TheNortheastGeorgian.com.