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UNC Lacrosse Project: Carolina Dreams

Former North Carolina lacrosse member Dave Werry started Carolina Dreams at the end of his freshman year. The goal was to partner Carolina student athletes with patients from the North Carolina Children’s Hospital. After been pioneered by Werry, the flame has been passed to Michael Munnelly. Today the lacrosse team hosted a few of the patients. They started with a meet and greet in the Kenan Fieldhouse academic center. Players and patients talked, especially about lacrosse which many of the patients did know know a lot about. Maybe a few UNC lacrosse fans were created today.

The players and patients were recognized on the field before kickoff and enjoyed the game from the bleachers.

Michael Jarvis

Jack Ryan

Dave Lohse

Sean DeLaney

UNC Lacrosse Project: Head Shot Day

The team was scheduled to do head shots and an outdoor team photo today. Until today the area had not received any rain since August 26th. Crops were wilting, lawns were crunchy and gardens required daily waterings to survive the drought we’ve been experiencing. On a day when good weather was needed, we of course picked the first rainy day in weeks to do the team photo outside. That said, given the severe drought we’ve had, I can’t complain too much. We needed rain more than we needed good weather. Given the rain, the team photo was rescheduled to next Friday. Jeff Camarati, the UNC photographer, was suppose to do it, but will be with the football team then. So looks like I’ve been drafted to take the photo in his place. That means no outtakes or behind-the-scenes look at the process.

The head shots were indoors in the team room and did not require good weather obviously. The players however, drenched by the downpour as they poured into the locker room, were soaking wet. Ties, shirts and hair all needed time to dry out. Still, many of the players had their picture taken with wet hair and it wasn’t because they were working out beforehand.

Before players had their head shot take by Jeff, they had to first pass inspection by sports information director Dave Lohse. Culprits with crooked or sloppy ties were stopped at the pass and not allowed to have their photo taken. Some like Chris Hunt with a newly dry cleaned shirt and Bobby McCauley were dressed to impress and passed the “Lohse test” with flying colors. Others like Michael Jarvis and Nick Tintle needed some work before getting a pass.

UNC Lacrosse Project: Weightlifting and Running

Next week the players will put on their equipment and begin practicing. Until then, weightlifting still remains the order of the day. Originally I wanted to photograph the first day of practice; however, my full-time job has me traveling to San Diego next week from Monday and returning Thursday evening. While I will be able to attend practice on Friday, it won’t be the first one which I wanted to do.

After going through the stations in the weight room coach Gatz called all the players to the middle of the weight room at a time unusually earlier than the normal end time. The players’ instincts told them a big run was in the cards and their instincts were proven correct. The players ran up and down the stairs in the aisle ways of Kenan Stadium. It would have been exhausting on the best of days; but on a hot North Carolina summer day it was worse. But all the players pulled through the endurance exercise and no one stopped before finishing.

UNC Lacrosse Project: Weightlifting

Not much to write. Today was a standard weightlifting day. All the routines were different though from the previous day. The strength and conditioning staff seem to have no end to ways to work these guys.

Jack Ryan

Bart Wagner

Chris Madalon

UNC Lacrosse Project: Weightlifting and Cookout

I almost did not go today but decided at the last moment to come out to practice. I’m glad I did or would have otherwise missed a lot of great stuff. When I first arrived at Kenan Stadium, coach Lattimore was writing the following message on the dry erase board:

Upperclassmen do not touch freshman’s stuff!!

Freshmen take care of your stuff. Do not lose, you’ll need them.

The freshmen today were getting their new gear for the upcoming season. New gloves and a new rolling suitcase. And the upperclassmen did come over to check out the new gear. Coach Lattimore helped the frosh with writing their numbers on their new gear with a Sharpie.

The team then headed to the weight room which is just adjacent to the locker room in the field house at Kenan Stadium. Lighting in there was pretty terrible; worse than the Ernie Smith Field House. It was complicated by the nature of the lighting which was very uneven. The inconsistency in light finally led me to putting my camera on “auto” for the exposure. That’s rare for me to do; I’m compulsive about only using my camera in manual mode but the spotty light made that infeasible. Using auto exposure worked for the most part, except I lost an entire sequence of photos of Jack Ryan because behind him were bright lights — an obvious failure mode for auto exposure that I forgot about.

I am continuously amazed by the strength and conditioning staff and the methods for training they come up with. While the general public is surrounded by advertisements of expensive home workout systems like Soloflex and others, the training staff can work out every single muscle in your body with nothing but a wooden box to work with.

During the workout session Chris Madalon said he and his roommates were having a cookout later in the night and were going to watch the NFL’s first game of the season featuring the Saints at Indianapolis. I said to of course count me in.

Some last minute news on the family front almost kept me from going to their house. My dad called around 6pm to say that mom was experiencing pains around the chest and was going to the ER. But mom said she thought she was okay and not to worry. So I went to the player’s house but my mom was front on my mind. She called later to let me know everything was okay and it was not the onset of a myocardial infarction as we worried about.

Chris Madalon, Sean Jackson, Sean Delaney, Hunter Meldman, Ian Morrison and Colin Sherwood all live in this house not far from campus. They put their funds together to buy some burgers, hot dogs and other side dishes. Colin did all the cooking, cooking under no light except the headlights of one the cars they turned out so they could see the grill outside. Food looked actually pretty good and they offered me some. But I ate before coming sense I didn’t want to eat the food they bought.

Funniest moment of the night came with our struggle with a can opener as we tried to open a can of beans. I was getting a good laugh as they tried to use a can opener to no avail. I stopped laughing when I also couldn’t figure it out. The night ended with no one ever able to figure out how to use this can opener. Someone was able to find an “old school” can opener thankfully; otherwise that can of beans would still not be open.

I stayed at their house until the game ended. At half time I got some shots of them playing the xbox. All in all, it was a great day for photos. I had a great time at their place and it was worth every minute.