Ben McKeown

It’s been a week. And I haven’t said anything about San Antonio. My sincere apologies.

A short recap to preface a much longer explanation sometime in the future:

Being at the Alamodome for the Final Four was simply incredible. As I imagined, the experience was humbling and simply surreal. The sheer magnitude of this accomplishment for me still hasn’t totally settled in. I’m going to need a few moments to reflect on the entire experience in order to understand it’s true importance.

My work for WRAL:
Practice Day
UNC vs Kansas

I spent Sunday walking around San Antonio taking pictures. I went to the Alamo (cliché, I know, but my family would disown me if I told them I went to San Antonio and didn’t visit the Alamo) and just walked for miles. I tried my best to hit spots that weren’t totally touristy, but with my limited transportation, it was a bit difficult. After a while, I began to marvel at the irony of the fact that a place like the Alamo - historic, important, a symbol of a struggle for liberty and justice - sits directly across the street from a wax museum and Ripley’s Believe it or Not! - certainly not a beacon of freedom. I began to think about the fact that despite its absurdity, there is something about this juxtaposition that is quintessentially American. We are free, if even to build ridiculous and terribly absurd tourist traps intended exploit the disfigured for a profit. This is one of the things that makes us unique.

The rest of the trip… the rest of the trip…

There were certain events that occurred on this trip that made it one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. Namely, I dealt with some folks that were less that professional, though I feel that it would be inappropriate to discuss this in detail publicly before it’s all finished. Suffice it to say that it seems that in any industry, there are always those who will seem truly insane, who will push you to your professional limits, who will engage in the ludicrous, the fatuous, the inane. I’m still reeling.

At any rate, the experience as a whole was important for me on a variety of levels. I’ll remember things - good and bad, professional and personal - about this trip for a long time.

A few things you might see me ramble about soon:
1. My moving, existential moment at the end of the UNC game
2. More details on the frustrations in San Antonio
3. More musings about the uniqueness and absurdity of America, for better or worse

For now, I’m sitting at Panera Bread in Greenville, North Carolina. I’m going to act in a movie being made by my lifelong friend and surrogate brother, Marshall, called “Neighborhood Watch”. It should be a fun and much needed vacation.

Peace.

It’s been a few days since I last wrote about my road to the final four. Honestly, it’s probably just a subconscious result of my near burnout when it comes to basketball. This is not to say that I’m not enjoying this whole experience, for I’m truly basking in the uniqueness and excitement of this whole process. It’s just that whenever you take photos of the same thing all the time, it starts to get a little monotonous. A basketball game generally plays out in the same kind of way every time it happens. The players make the same moves, the refs make all the same calls, everything starts to look the same. In a few short months of shooting, I feel like I’ve taken just about every standard basketball picture that exists. (Of course, this is not true, but it just starts to feel that way after a while.) It’s for this reason that you might notice that my galleries on WRAL.com feature a few more off-the-court photos than usual, i.e. the bench, the coach, the cheerleaders, the timeouts, etc. For some reason, the Carolina bench particularly lends itself to this kind of shot; they seem to always enjoy themselves.

My galleries from the two games in Charlotte:
UNC vs Washington State
UNC vs Louisville

The second trip to Charlotte was interesting.

As I mentioned before, the weather was just terrible. After a perfect Thursday, where temperatures lingered in the high 70’s and sun claimed the majority of the sky, Saturday felt like a slap in the rhetorical face. The sky, overcast, threatened quite absurdly to drop something like snow, what with the temperatures hovering around the mid to upper 30’s. I quite honestly expected to see and hear the signs of an imminent Christmas. Simply put, it was cold.

After a few minutes of nothingness in the hotel, I headed down to Bobcats arena to set up for the game between UNC and Louisville. The media compound in Bobcats arena was quite impressive, actually. The space was ample, which is more than can be said for the media accommodations at Duke, UNC, and NC State. It seems that things in the NCAA start to get serious in the regional rounds. The seriousness was markedly evident when I walked onto the floor, where there stood a very clean cut man who seemed to be in his mid 50’s. His hair was about halfway gray and his jaw was cut like that of a former Secret Service agent - perhaps a James Dean in a previous life. He recited to me a litany of rules - stay away from the bench when the players come onto the court, sit only nine inches off the ground if you’re in the second row, don’t run onto the court when the game ends, make sure your arm band is visible, etc., etc., etc. I’ve never been a fan of tedious rule recitations, but I handled this one without too much frustration. Soon the game started and all I had to really worry about was whether or not UNC could pull this one out …and oh yeah… photography.

The game, as I’d expected, was tight. Louisville undoubtedly presented Carolina with their toughest challenge in the tournament to date, even leading a few times throughout the game. Ultimately, however, UNC proved to be the better of the two teams. The most notable portion of the game came at the end, while UNC had about a 10 point lead with just around 90 seconds to go. As is normally the case, Louisville began fouling UNC in an attempt to force the Tar Heels to maintain their lead from the free-throw line. Throughout the entirety of those last seconds, I cannot recall UNC missing a single free throw. I don’t have the official stats, but I believe that Hansbrough, Lawson, Green, and perhaps Thomas all hit 100% of their free throws at the end of the game. This is truly the mark of a great team.

UNC Celebrated on the court after the game. It was quite an interesting and fun experience to stand amid the elated players as they shouted and smiled and hugged. Head coach Roy Williams even joined in the celebration, dancing and shouting along with his players; he really seemed to be making an attempt to relish the moment. I was reminded, as I was in my production of We Not Me, of the value and importance of family. The team seemed so undeniably connected, so understanding and trusting of one another. This, I believe, is what makes sports a valuable part of our society. Despite it’s ultimate triviality, the bonds and emotion that it can create are invaluable.

I worked till 5 am that night. The extra photos from the celebration nearly doubled the workload, and because the NCAA inanely charges the media to use their internet, I elected to upload my work to WRAL from the hotel, thus prolonging the process. By the time I went to sleep, I was halfway delirious, hence the aforementioned exhaustion.

Right now, I’m sitting at the Southwest Airlines terminal of RDU Airport. My flight leaves in a little less than an hour. I’m headed to San Antonio.

I’ve dealt with quite a fair share of annoyances over the past few days, stemming from a general disorganization on the part of those responsible for the travel plans. I might get into that later. For now, I’m going to pull out Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey and try to finish it before the plane arrives.