Spartans Pep Rally – April 3 2009

By popular demand, I’ve had lots of requests to post these, so I thought I’d make a post about them!

I am a portrait photographer. I am a wedding photographer. I am an event photographer.  But one thing I don’t do a lot of is sports! So admittedly, I am a little out of the loop when it comes to the sports world, especially being from a Canadian background and living in Michigan now. (If it ain’t a sport on ice of some sort, we usually don’t pay attention..hehe)

So when I got invited to shoot for a giant Final Four pep rally for the Michigan State Spartans at The Somerset Collection, I really didn’t think much of it beyond “cool, I get to shoot some people and some basketball players!”. Boy, did I underestimate the power of the Spartans!

Yeah, there were a few people there….

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This was more than just basketball fans… this was a legacy. There were children in diapers wear Spartan green, and there were Great-Grandmas showing me true Spartan pride! Every colour/age/size/age in the book was here, and you could feel the energy throughout the entire day! Since I had shown up in ONLY a Spartan t-shirt, I quickly bought a green hat with a big white S on it and tried my best to blend in with the crowd.

After some speeches by various faculty members, alumni, and others, you could feel the excitement building. Someone…no, SOMETHING big was coming, and when I looked at the crowd, all cameras were out, and pointed towards the stage….

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This Spartan team walked into the mall as basketball players, but walked on the stage as rock stars. The crowd erupted and you could feel the emotion in the crowd, swelling with pride for their boys had made it to the Final Four, in the best year it could have been, while it was being held in Detroit!

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But once the players had taken the stage, there was one more person who managed to take the crowd from a 10 to a full on 11 – the man himself Coach Izzo. (see swooning woman in picture above)

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Now I have to admit…I was hooked. I was caught up in the pride of the day, and upon hearing Coach Izzo speak, I have to admit, I have a crazy amount of respect for him. Here he was admitting, with real tears in his eyes how touched he was by the swelling of support, and humbly spoke that he “wished he could take the time to personally thank every single person here.” And you could feel that he honestly meant it.

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Oh yeah, what is it like to turn around and see 10,000 fans looking at you? It looks like this:

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All in all, that night opened my eyes to something bigger than just a game, just a basketball team. The Spartans had fans, a family, a legacy behind them, and even though they didn’t end up winning the final game, they were winners already in every one’s eyes that night and for a long time to come. And because of this, I now know the appropriate answer when someone yells Go Green! (Go White!)

Congratulations on all your successes Spartans!

  • April 14, 2009 - 6:43 pm

    Megan - I can’t even tell you how INCREDIBLY AWESOME this post is. ROCK ON Derek! You did an incredible job.ReplyCancel

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