I went to college at Wichita State University, where we lacked a football program due to several circumstances in the 70’s & 80’s. I feel that I missed out on the experience of tailgating and cheering for a college team on Saturday afternoon’s in the fall. However, I feel a lot of people missed out on watching their college baseball team during the spring. Baseball was a substitute for the football ambiance at WSU, and its the main reason why I’m a college baseball fan today. I don’t watch a lot of regular season games, but I always catch the Super Regionals and College World Series. I thought it would be fun to give my thoughts on the best venues across America. Note: I haven’t traveled to these stadiums, so the “atmosphere” could not be considered in my judging.  I know I’m going to get an email suggesting a stadium that I forgot, and I will probably  have to reconsider my list. Oh who am I joking,  no one comments on my blog posts…

10. Lupton Stadium – Home of the TCU Horned Frogs – Fort Worth, TX.

The right field score board really makes this a cool park
 

9. Miller Park – Home of the BYU Cougars – Provo, UT

This is the smallest of all the parks I have listed with a capacity of 2,200. The stadium itself has a unique canvas like awning, but the true reason I chose to include this location was the view past center field.

8. Clark LeClair Stadium – Home of the East Carolina Pirates – Greenville, NC

The stadium will hold 3000, but the field also hosts an elevated viewing/tailgating area beyond the left and center fences.
 

7. Turchin Stadium – Home of the Tulane Green Wave – New Orleans, LA

This stadium was opened in 2008 as the previous complex was destroyed by hurricane Katrina.
 

6. Russ Chandler – Home of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets – Atlanta, GA

There is nothing like a downtown ballpark.
 

5 USC Stadium – Home of the South Carolina Gamecocks — Columbia, SC

Built in 2009, this is one of the newer stadiums I have noted. It seats nearly 7,000 and the outfield scoreboard towers over 80 ft.
 

4. Eck Stadium – Home of the Wichita State Shockers – Wichita, KS

I’m partial to this stadium as I am an Alumni of WSU, but it really is a great park. It holds close to 8,000, not including the outfield hills, which was developed do to the lack of funding to carry way excess dirt.  

3. Doug Kingsmore  Stadium – Home of the Clemson Tigers – Clemson, SC

With the brick face, this park looks more like a minor league facility than a collegiate. It holds over 5000 spectators and has boasted the best attendance in college baseball numerous years.
 

2. Plainsman Park – Home of the Auburn Tigers – Auburn, AL

This place is actually called Samford Stadium – Hitchcock Field at Plainsman Park and its got loads of character. Probably the most notable is the 37 foot high left field fence that measures 315 feet from home plate. The original facility was first built in 1950 and gone through numerous renovations. Today it seats 4,000 and offers a brick backstop like Wrigley and a Green monster like Fenway.
 

1. New Alex Box Stadium – Home of the LSU Tigers – Baton Rouge, LA

This stadium is ridiculous. It holds 8,500 fans with 17 suites, championship plaza (what ever that is) and two picnic areas.
 

So what have I learned from writing this blog post? The south loves its baseball and if your mascot is a Tiger you have a great chance of having a state-of-the-art facility. Unless your from Missouri… Let me know if you think im wong. I would love to hear about it.

HDR stands for High Dramatic Range. Basically its the process of taking several photos of the same object at different exposures. You then combine, or layer all of the images into one photo. It can be done at several levels. I have seen some images that were made from 10-15 different exposures. At this point the images beginto look less like photos and more like paintings. I took these at my dad’s hanger on my recent trip back to Kansas to shoot a wedding (coming soon to the blog) All three of these were made from 5 different exposures. I then combined them in photomatix and tone mapped at different levels. If your a purest I guess this may be considered pushing the limits of true photography. I was just having a little fun.

Another supprise from my birthday last week were that my parents drove in from Kansas so we could all be together. It’s always fun to hang out with family. I wish I could do it more, but I also love how special it is when we get together since it doesn’t happen too often with me and my wife living in the Pacific Northwest. I made my brother, wife and niece take photos on Saturday evening.  I should clarify. I made my niece take photos, I made my brother and wife hold flashes. This is one of the shots. I was having trouble getting my flash system to work right. I have two speedlites with Elinchrom Skyport Radio Slaves to fire them. I was shooting on a low apreture with fast shutter and then remembered that the flashes will only sync up to 1/200th of a second with the Elinchrom system.  Easy fix, but if anyone out there is thinking about getting these radio slaves, just know that you will lose your high speed sync capabilities. She’s a cutie, I wish I could take more photos of her.

Adidas has picked 4 NBA players who skipped college and entered the draft to cheer on an adopted college team during this year’s March Madness Tournament. I believe they are releasing a shoe in conjunction with the ad campaign for each school. You can see Dwight in his #12 home Kansas Jersey  here.

Kevin Garnet - UCLA

T-Mac – Louisville

Josh Smith – Pitt

Dwight Howard – Kansas

I don’t like to play the “what if” game; however,  this would have been our starting lineup during the 03-04 season if this fairytale were true:
G. 6′4 215lbs Keith Langford
SG. 6′3 215lbs Michael Lee
PG. 6′1 175lbs Aaron Miles
PF. 6′9 255lbs Wayne Semien
C. 6′11 265lbs  Dwight Howard 
 
Bench: David  Padgett
 
 

I believe in the one point five rule for two reasons. First, I believe it’s true. Second, the one rule just doesn’t sound as good. It suggests that if you are counting sleeping hours while in transit, whether in a car, train or plane, you take your original hours slept and divide it by 1.5 to get an accurate time of rest. My plane for Houston left the damp runway of Portland International Airport last Friday night at 11:55 pm. Hank and I were on our way to San Antonio to watch our Jayhawks play in the Final 4. With my two hours of sleep in the air and an additional two hours of sleep in Houston’s airport I was up to 4  (2.6) hours of sleep; which is enough considering my mind was quickly becoming occupied with the thought of what I was going to witness that evening. After a short 30 min flight to Austin we rented a car and drove the 1.5 hour drive to San Antonio and arrived at around noon on Saturday.. We met my Brother and His wife, Angie, at our Hotel before heading down to the River walk.
 
That afternoon and had a couple of beers at one of the multiple restaurants that cover either side of the river. Each of the Final 4 teams had their share of fans wondering around. We immediately determined defining characteristics of each of them.
 
UCLA: Tan or Asian, likely wearing team jersey with facial hair that is well trimmed, 
UNC: Old
Memphis: Speaking in an unrecognizable English accent and eating some form of meat.
 
As I was reviewing my photos when I got home I noticed the Gentleman in the bottom right of this photo. He looked a lot like KU’s Athletic Director Lew Perkins. It would make since with the huge ring on his hand (Orange Bowl Ring). After sending it to my brother we both agree that it is him. I never knew he was there…
 

 
I love this photo because my brother is typically true to his “gut feeling” for the game. Angie and Hank = nervous, but Konan was expecting the victory, that or he was drunk.  

 
This was a great backdrop for a couple of frames. The problem was the doors in the background went into hotel and convention center, so it was difficult to get a shot with no one else in the background. I put the original photos up too… before I took care of the problem. (sounds so mafia-ish)
 
    
 
 
 
 
 
We got to the arena about an hour and a half before the tip off of the first game. I didn’t take many photos inside of the Alamo Dome because they weren’t allowing lenses longer than 4 inches. For some reason they let me in, but I got several looks from staff when I had it out shooting, so I put the camera away most of the time. I was probably more nervous about the final 4 game against UNC than I was the national championship. I have wanted to play Roy Williams since he left KU over 4 years ago. Every year when the tournament brackets are released I look at our first match up and then I find North Carolina to determine what it will take to play them. You could tell who was picked to win the games. UCLA fans were lethargic before their game with Memphis and UNC fans didn’t even show up for the first 10 minutes of the UCLA – Memphis game. I enjoyed being the underdog; we just seem to play better. The first 15 min of the game against UNC was probably the best I have ever seen a Kansas basketball team play. I have seen individual performances that I will never forget, like Nick Collison vs. Texas on Big Monday, or Julian Wright vs. Texas at the 07’ Big XII Championship Game. But as a team; I have never seen a better performance. And what a better time than with Roy on the other end of the court. It was like seeing that ex-girlfriend for the first time in 4 years…. and then destroying her on a basketball court. I knew what the UNC fans were feeling. I have seen many Roy Williams high octane offence teams struggle against tough defense. One in particular was in 2000 when KU played Illinois in the Midwest Regional Semifinals. Roy had our team averaging 82 points a game. Bill Self’s Allini held us to 64 points to win the game. By-the-way, that game was played in San Antonio.
    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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