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At long last, the home opener. At 55 degrees, Fetzer Field and nearby Koskinen Stadium undoubtedly had the best weather in the nation for all the NCAA D1 programs opening their lacrosse program today.Normally for a 1pm game, I would get to Fetzer at around 12:15. But with my project, covering “behind-the-scenes” requires me to arrive much earlier. I aimed to be at the locker room at 11:00am so I left my house at around 10:40; my hope was to beat the team to the locker room.Halfway on my way to Chapel Hill though, I came to the last-minute realization that parking was going to be more problematic than I thought. Today at 1pm, not only was the UNC lacrosse team playing, but the men’s basketball team was also playing a home game. I’ve known that basketball and lacrosse would conflict for a long time, but it never dawned on me that parking would be tight. (Normally for basketball I’m spoiled with press parking so I don’t have to worry about it).

The parking difficulties threw out my idea of parking at Kenan Stadium where the locker room is. Instead, I had to park at Fetzer Field and make the walk to Kenan Stadium. I thought for sure that the extra time required to walk from Fetzer to the locker room would put me way past 11am and half the guys would be there before I was. Thankfully though, it all worked out as I beat everyone but the coaches there. Even better, I was able to get a some nice photos of the freshly-folded white jerseys laying on the stools that awaited the players as they walked in.This was the first time these jerseys have been laid out for the players. In the past, it’s been practice jerseys. If I was a freshman, I have to imagine that walking in, finding the jersey on my stool then holding it in my hands would be a particularly emotional moment.

More emotion though filled the locker room when the young children of Rip Davy, an All-American at UNC who passed away about one-month ago, came to visit the players in the locker room. Coach Haus introduce the team to the two young men, Will and Brooks, and challenged the team to win today’s game for them and show them what UNC lacrosse is about.The team did just that, winning 15-2, which included a 14-o scoring rampage. At one point, UNC was down 1-2, but just exploded offensively and defensively. Included in that 14-0 scoring run was a 3-minute period when the Heels were down a man for a stick penalty. But even a man down for 3 minutes, the Heels were still not scored on. Shane Walterhoefer won 12:18 of his faceoffs; Mike Burns won both of his. Sean Delaney had 4 point (2 G and 2 A).

Next weekend the Heels are heading to Denver. I had hoped to go, but there are so many things going on that weekend for me that I can’t travel. I will be photographing Duke lacrosse for Inside Lacrosse Saturday and UNC Basketball on Sunday.

Limestone scrimmage

Drexel game

Stick stringing

Practice

UNC Lacrosse Project: Cold Practice

Today was the second day of practice for the team. They arrived back to campus last week from Christmas break but were doing weight training and conditioning before this week. Before practice started, North Carolina was having some beautiful weather. 60 and 70 degree days were not unusual to find. But someone upstairs has a sense of humor it seems – just as outdoor practice started, the temperatures began to plummet. With the wind chill, I think we were around the mid 30’s. I was pretty thankful that I didn’t live in the Northeast. I bet the boys at Cornell and Dartmouth have it way worse. I was trying to feel some sympathy for them, but after my feet began to hurt from the cold ground, I stopped feeling most everything.

I didn’t take very many photos today. My fingers were getting stiff from the cold making using the camera uncomfortable. I was also battling the light with darkness now arriving earlier in the day from the time change.

Jack Ryan, Chris Cortina, Bobby McAuley, Ben Hunt and Matthias McCall at their house on McDade St.

Weightlifting day

UNC Lacrosse Project: Junior Dinner

Until Spring semester starts in January, there probably won’t be any further postings on the project. The guys will be starting final exams very soon. I’m not exactly sure what I will do with myself while not working on the project. Acutally, I do know. I have gigabytes of photos to sort through, caption and back-up to my PhotoShelter account. That will probably keep me preoccupied over the Christmas holiday. I’m backing up all my photos online so that they are backed-up offsite just in case my computer crashed or my house burned down. It would be a huge loss to me to loose all the work I’ve done.Tonight though was the junior dinner. Mrs. Haus was a champ to come home earlier today from Ohio State and cook a meal for a hungry set of guys plus a hungry photographer. Tonight she made a chicken casserole, salad, bread and a homemade cherry cobbler.Before the meal, coach Haus’ youngest son Grant was able to once again sucker a player into playing him in a game. This time it was on the Nintendo Wii instead of paper football. Chris Cortina was the first victim and was promptly downed with ease by Grant while playing boxing and football. The other players said goalie Grant Zimmerman’s skills were legendary and he was nominated by the other players to take on little Grant and preserve what pride the players had left. I didn’t see how the Grant vs. Grant match-up played out, but big Grant was showing a respectable performance on the outset. My apologies to the seniors but I will be missing their dinner. I have to be in San Fransisco next week and New York the week after for business.