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February 18th, 2008

Through the Lens: Wake Forest

With all five Duke starters fouled out, I was pretty sure the Devils were done. When the fans in the first row started warning the photographers to hide their gear and get out of the way, I knew Wake had pulled off their upset.

As a Chronicle photographer, I watched the game from a strange place, and I don’t just mean the baseline. Sure, I love it when Duke wins, but in the final moments of the game, I was too absorbed in shoving my extra camera gear under a table to protect it from the black and gold onslaught to care.

When the last seconds wound off the clock, a middle-aged Wake fan with a screeching voice shoved me aside to rush the court. I recovered from her flagrant foul to run out with her and a thousand other Demon Deacons, pushing through the crowd to capture Wake’s excitement on camera.

As a 5′8″ guy in a sea of gold and black tie-dye, I wasn’t in a position to take pictures of much other than the chests of screaming, jumping, celebrating Wake students. But that’s what chairs are for.

It remains a mystery to me what normal people think of us crazy photographers balanced precariously on short folding chairs. But photographers learn pretty quickly that the only way to shoot a crowd is from above. From my perch, I shot Demon baller after Deacon baller, sweating furiously, high-fiving every fan who stretched his hand in to touch a piece of the magical moment.

The 13-point upset was bitter sweet for Wake Forest, coming in its first season without former head coach Skip Prosser, who passed away July 26. As celebration swirled around sophomore L.D. Williams, the guard dedicated the victory to his former coach before breaking down in tears. He recovered to unfold his pointer finger in the universal symbol of victory—number one—before heading off to the locker room.

Caught up in the excitement of Wake’s celebration, for a while, I forgot that Duke had lost. That reality came crashing down as I stood in the post-game press conference, dripping with sweat, listening to Coach K evaluate the Blue Devils’ play. As a photographer, I don’t usually listen to what the coaches say—all I care is that they look good on camera. But tonight, I had to listen, to hear Kryzewski make sense of the loss of the second-best team in the nation to an unranked one that no one thought had a chance at a tournament berth going into the night.

“We have to always play like we have to win,” Kryzewski said. “That’s the sign of a champion…. We have some young guys who haven’t been champions before, and they’re trying to learn how to be that. Sometimes the best lessons are the ones that are taught in defeat, so hopefully we’ll learn that lesson.”

–Zachary Tracer

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 6:17 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.