Little Irish, Big Talent!

Watching the next generation grow

One of the incredible new partnerships I made this past year was with the Rosemount Area Athletics youth lacrosse program. This came from my relationship with the high school program and helping to cover their "All Irish Night" the varsity and JV players put on for the younger players in the area.

The youth program serves all ages for the city starting with their Initiation Program at age 6 all the way up to middle school age for both boys and girls. After some back and forth with the program director and hammering out details, we came to the agreement that we would cover a game for every age level for both boys and girls over the course of the season. This service was something new to the program and they wanted to test it out and see how it went, so I set the bar pretty high for myself to make sure they were nothing short of thrilled with what they would receive.

As I headed to my first few games, a lot of parents emailed me or stopped me to say hi and how excited they were to have some action photos of their kid playing and how they loved the photos they'd seen from the high school program. At every single game, without fail, the kids on each team would see me show up with cameras in hand asking if they were getting photos tonight and then getting excited and want to show off a little more in the game.

One of my favorite things about covering these games without a doubt was seeing all the different age levels and the skill progressing with age. Each age level had it's own unique highlights and entertaining points which always had me guessing who the best player would be or who might make the coolest play of the game. I had so much fun covering these games, but not nearly as much fun as I did seeing the reactions from the parents and the kids when they would share their favorites or when a kid would flag me down and thank me for a photo at a different game.

I'd love to work with the program again, so I'm definitely hopeful to hear from them in the coming months!

Currently Listening To: The Damage Is Done by Real Friends