I sucked at sports.
No, we're talking downright terrible.
The baseball terrified me. My worst fear came true when Roman from the Rangers beaned me square in the ass in Little League. It stung so bad I tried to put the fire in my ass out by bounding my butt on the floor.
That was the first time Dad left a game embarrassed for me. But, unfortunately, it wasn't the last.
Basketball wasn't any better. I scored shot a three-pointer with my eyes closed during a game. And those were the only three points I would score in two years of playing.
Wrestling was worse.
And don't get me started with football.
I hung up my cleats my sophomore year in high school and never looked back.
I mainly played sports because my friends played sports. It was the thing to do.
Now I used to enjoy watching sports. I grew up watching wrestling, Major League Baseball (Wade Boggs was my favorite player), and professional football (I was a 49's Fan).
Eventually, I gravitated to hockey when I lived in Dallas and started following the Stars the year before their Stanley Cup run in 1999.
But my interest waned in hockey when I moved to Austin.
Now I attend Superbowl parties for the food and rarely know whose playing.
When Marcos came of age, we got him into soccer since it was safer than football. Marcos played for two years and hated it.
Then in Middle School, Marcos opted to play football.
So, of course, Lucy and I would attend every game.
Lucy would want to get to the game early to sit square in the center of the stands. Then, when Marcos trotted out on the field (he wasn't a benchwarmer like his old man, thank God), Lucy would pull out her iPhone to take pictures and video.
I'd see Lucy frame her shot and then zoom in on her iPhone.
Now even with the bit of knowledge I had about photography at the time, I knew her pictures would be pixelated and barely watchable.
So when I was in the market for a compact camera, one thing I looked for was an excellent zoom lens to beat the iPhone's zoom capability. That turned out to be the Sony RX100 M7.
My pictures were a tad better since I was working off a chip dedicated to photography, but I was still taking images from the same seats.
I never asked to go on the field, thinking public schools had strict rules about who could be on the field.
That all changed when Marcos decided to play Rugby. Now I had access to the field.
I noticed early that parents hardly move when they take shots of their kids playing. They're mainly there to cheer on their kid.
After watching a few videos on YouTube on sports photography, I realized that sports photographers move during a game.
So during Marcos' rugby games, I'd move as well.
As I was taking pictures of Marcos, I would also take pictures of his teammates. So I would share those other pictures with other parents. And they loved them.
My favorite parts of this process were a) the pictures looked damn cool and b) I could make these kids look heroic.
I was taking shots of them putting their whole heart into a sport.
That's cool.
And I enjoy it.
I was finally on a field and wasn’t making a total fool of myself.
And that's how I came into sports photography.