STA – Spring Football – Highlights with Derick Hingle

STA – Spring Football

On Thursday I spent the evening shooting some high school spring football at St. Thomas Aquinas in Hammond, La. I was shooting for the high school website and the photo below pretty much depicts how the game went for the St. Thomas Falcons.

I understand my photo created a bit of a stir with a few of the good people at St. Thomas, unfortunately, the photo is mis-understood by them, some thought it depicted St. Thomas in a bad light as they were beaten and bruised in their spring game but my intention with picture was to show the toughness of a team and a an extraordinary athlete, wide receiver Scott Sledge who is shown in the big hit photo. Sledge has one arm, he presented the example of the toughness that is taught by St. Thomas head coach John White and his coaching staff, a player with one arm runs a slant into the middle of the field, there are are receivers in the NFL that have what we call short arms when they go down the middle, but not Sledge, even with one arm he showed a fearless attitude and tried to make the play, he was hit and hit hard but he got back up and will do it again, it is a testament to St. Thomas football that their players don’t give up, this play happened near the end of the game down 20-0, but St. Thomas continued to try they didn’t give up.

The photo of Sledge was my absolute favorite of the day because I think it showed how tough of a team St. Thomas is, I’m sad to see some people did not see it the way I did.

Here are a few more of my favorite shots from the scrimmage, it was a rough day for St. Thomas, but they tried, they didn’t give up, they played the game.