This past weekend, my wife and I spend 2 days photographing the MSHSAA State Track and Field Meet. As you may know by now, we have spent the last several months chasing the Fulton High School Track Team around the state to its various meets and this is the culmination of it all.
We only had two of athletes make it to state. Ethan Milius earned all-state with a fifth-place finish, and Gabe DeFily placed ninth, just off the podium.
We did meet a lot of other great athletes over the season as well. That’s one of the great things about track is that even if you are a rival school, you can make friends with those you compete with at every meet.
Mexico Missouri’s Morgan Grubb Pole Vaults at the 2023 State Track meet.
This was only one of a few times that we have photographed any event together like this. We were able to capture a lot of great images for athletes and got to witness so many things others might miss.
When you love running and the sport of Track and Field you can easily get sucked into wanting to see different athletes compete each week. You want them to succeed. You want them to throw farther, jump higher, run faster. You want to see them improve themselves week after week. You get invested in the story they are telling.
Class 3 Boys 1600m run.
I want to tell the stories of these athletes. I want them to share about what they go through. Their hard work. Their ups and down. I want them to know they don’t go unnoticed even if they aren’t winning every race. High school is hard. These kids need to know that what they do, does matter. It’s making an impact on someone whether they know it or not.
All the images we captured are free to view. If an athlete, coach, or parent wants to contact me for their athletes photo, I can work with you on a link that will allow you to download those images. These athletes deserve to have images to remember what they accomplished.
Check out the link below to see them all.
Downloads for athletes, parents, and coaches are free. If anyone feels like they want to contribute to the cause, I always take tips. My Venmo is Alan-Combs-2. This is just a little something I can do, to give back to the community.