LJ Spring sports - A busy time

By Ed Piper

This week is a busy time, and I resemble that.

With the early days of the Spring sports schedule, many activities are going on, there are many sites those activities are going on, and I'm no longer trying to cover every single sport as I did not too many years ago as a younger man!

For instance, yesterday (St. Patrick's Day) had Vikings girls beach volleyball going on at South Mission Beach under the watchful (and patient) eye of Coach Kelly Drobeck, herself a Hall of Famer for her many years of directing successful court and beach volleyball teams both at LJHS and previously at Cathedral Catholic/USDHS; followed by and overlapped by the Viking girls and boys track teams under Coach Paul Byrne hosting Morse High's interesting and explosive teams; and more.

I took some photos of girls JVs' matches at South Mission Beach. Then I bailed (I had been on the move since leaving La Costa Canyon High in North County where I subbed during the day) to go to the track meet. By then, partly due to a stressful period 2 class in which I wanted to assist students with graphing in geometry but was having a hard time grasping what the final product would look like, resulting in personal frustration, I was out of gas and stayed only to take photos of the Vikings pole vaulters, male and female, as they took their vaults. (Morse had no pole vaulters to vie against.)

In sum, while subbing four days a week while the sub pay during the end of COVID is still fantastic ($250 a day), I am cramming in my "normal" photo and writing activities in the afternoons. Did I say I am feeling my age a little?!

I love it. What's not to love about choosing which Vikings teams (my granddaughter attended LJHS 2004-08) to cover, at what venues, at what times? I am living and re-living my earlier sports editor days (as a 23-year-old at the keyboard in the offices of the Goleta Today in Santa Barbara, which we called the Goleta Yesterday on days when the press broke down and the newspaper didn't get delivered, our whole day published but not appreciated by any of our 3,000 readers).

My present fascination, if you read yesterday's article on "Refracting the light", is maximizing the performance of my Canon Powershot, which is surprisingly versatile in capturing images during daylight hours, though shooting at night is still very possible and is yielding some satisfying results. (See girls lacrosse photos yesterday.)