Rose of Sharon Equestrian School

This is the first completed video editing job I've done for "The Sun!"

NCAA Lacrosse Championship Weekend

Gilman Takes MIAA "A" Baseball Title from Calvert Hall for First Time in Five Years

Here are some of the photos that I took for my internship at "The Baltimore Sun."

Baltimore Sun Interns

      Please check out my fellow interns' work at The Baltimore Sun's website.

     Matt Berger recently compiled national and local perspectives on the Orioles' slow start in 2010, and has now added to his resume an ACC college football prediction piece for this fall's season. In the article, he notes both the stars and key newcomers that will serve as playmakers come September.

     Two other interns, who are working with me in the multimedia department, have also started blogs to round out their internship experience. Both have edited and published videos to the newspaper's website. They will serve ten week-long internships.

You can see Billie Weiss's blog here.

(Photo Credit: Coach Paul Johnson, of Georgia Tech. Sports Illustrated.com)

Long Island? Upstate? Baltimore Remains the Lacrosse Capital of the World

     It is a truth universally acknowledged that Baltimore, Maryland is the epicenter of the lacrosse universe. Recently, many have suggested that this center may be moving to New York, specifically the upstate and Long Island areas.

     While it is true that Long Island's West Islip high school boys' lacrosse team consistently finishes in the nation's top ten, and Syracuse has won back-to-back NCAA National Championships (they were eliminated from the 2010 postseason in an overtime loss to Army last week), Baltimore remains the heart and soul of the fastest game on two feet.

     This year, "The City that Reads" hosts both the NCAA mens' and women's semifinals and finals, which will be played Memorial Day weekend. On Friday night, the women will take the field at Towson University's Unitas Stadium, just miles north of the city line. The next morning, the four mens' semifinalists will square off at M&T Bank Stadium in downtown Baltimore. The next day will provide a triple threat, as Ravens Stadium will host the DII and DIII finals on Sunday, and Unitas Stadium will host the women's finals. The weekend festivities conclude with the NCAA DI finals on Memorial Day. The tournament has been hosted at M&T for 2 of the last 6 years (the other seasons' finals were split between Foxborogh and Philadelphia), and has returned to Charm City for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. Additionally, Baltimore's M&T is home to not one, but two, major NCAA regular season double-headers. This year, Maryland and Duke and Princeton and Hopkins squared off in early March at the annual Konica Minolta "Faceoff Classic." A month later, Army and Navy matched up as did Hopkins and Maryland (the most historic lacrosse rivalry) at "Day of Rivals."

     In addition to hosting the tournament, the area has produced programs with great lacrosse traditions. In addition to the perennial powers (Hopkins, Maryland, etc.) the area is beginning to see upstart programs, like Towson's, and Loyola's, achieve real success. Last week, Loyola lost to Cornell in triple overtime, after charging back from a 9-2 deficit. Of course, Maryland looks particularly strong this season, and the men are seeded third in the tournament. The Maryland women's team has seen similar success, earning the #1 seed over the Northwestern Wildcats, who have dominated the women's field of competition for years. The Terrapins pose the biggest threat to the Wildcats' dynasty.

Maryland also serves as the geographic epicenter of the sport. This year, four of the top five seeds were assigned to ACC schools Duke, UNC, Maryland, and UVA, and while Maryland is certainly the northernmost school of this group, Baltimore's location in the Midatlantic still marks a halfway point for Atlantic Coast Conference teams.

     While lacrosse continues to grow and build a following across the United States (it is still most popular on the East Coast, although many programs in California and the Midwest are picking up), and tournament organizers have attempted to expand the sport's following by hosting the NCAA finals in various cities along the Atlantic coast, the tournament continues to come back to Baltimore. And in Baltimore, it's not all about college lacrosse either. In fact, the city consistently churns out some of the best high school players in the nation. As Boys' Latin and St. Pauls prepare to battle for the MIAA title this evening, many local teams furnish the sport's top programs with players.

     These high school players do not only continue their careers at local schools. Next year, a number of players hailing from Gilman, Boys' Latin, and other area schools will head to Chapel Hill to play for the Tarheels. Other destinations include Maryland, UMBC, Georgetown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth. Many junior players have already committed to schools including Dave Pietramala's Johns Hopkins, John Danowski's Duke University, or Dom Starsia's University of Virginia. Both the boys' and girls' high-school All America lacrosse games, sponsored by Under Armour (a Baltimore company), are hosted at Unitas as well. Last year Baltimore schools graduated some of the nation's top recruits, who now make major contributions at UNC, Harvard, Georgetown, and countless other schools. In women's lacrosse, Baltimore area schools are also strong.

     Both private schools, as well as public, annually send girls to extremely successful DI and DIII schools, where many start as early as freshman year.

So come Memorial Day weekend, the games at M&T will be hosted by a large number of area universities, and sponsored by a number of lacrosse companies, many of which are Baltimore-based. "Inside Lacrosse," the sport's premier publication, is also run out of the city, and the sport's national Hall of Fame is located on the Johns Hopkins University campus, just feet from the legendary Homewood Field.

     While the season is over for Dave Pietramala and the Jays, they are looking forward to the next couple years, which will undoubtedly be tough. Pietramala's extremely young crew will be without this season's sparkplugs Steve Boyle and Michael Kimmel, and will have to focus on rebuilding. The team will rely heavily on returning veterans Kyle Wharton, Matt Dolente, and emerging star and rising junior Tom Palasek. Palasek, who wears Kyle Harrison's legendary #18, finished the season with an unexpectedly strong performance in a disappointing 18-5 loss to the Duke Blue Devils last Saturday.

While Hopkins rebuilds, there are plenty of other area teams for one to watch and root for. As aforementioned, College Park has produced two incredibly menacing teams, whose resolves will be tested in the coming 10 days. Additionally, the smaller schools are emerging as future contenders, and high school and little league programs continue to reign supreme. While lacrosse may be wildly popular in certain areas of New York, it is a lifestyle in Baltimore.

     Here, it is easy to catch lacrosse fever. It is a social scene. It is an intense emotional experience. People who have never heard of lacrosse move to the city and fall in love with the sport. There are families of lacrosse greats and legacies, those last names you hear and immediately associate with the sport. And amazingly enough, there are, with increasing regularity, formerly unexposed children and adults catching the contagion. Players like Kyle Harrison have helped break the racial barriers that have historically pervaded the sport, and every day, progress is being made to similarly breaking down socioeconomic barriers in the sport, making it more welcoming, accessible, and inclusive. Baltimore's passion for the sport, and its positive relationship with both the sport, its players, and related organizations continues to benefit the city and its citizens as well.

     While there are lacrosse fans (and incredibly dedicated ones at that) living in New York, the sport is not an intrinsic part of the state's identity. In Baltimore, jousting may be the original "official state sport," but lacrosse is an ever-present force in the background. In Baltimore, a lacrosse "sub-culture" has emerged, as can perhaps be conveyed best through "Brantford Winstonworth," and his YouTube hit, "The Ultimate Lax Bro." This short was popular because of its satirical, yet to an extent realistic, portrayal of the lacrosse culture.

In Baltimore, lacrosse is held in the highest regard, and while it continues to grow elsewhere, this city will always be its home (even if the Iroquois first technically invented it in New York.) For all intents and purposes, Baltimore is where the modern game of lacrosse started. Next weekend, expect the officials at M&T Bank, as well as the citizens of Baltimore and NCAA players, to put on an incredible show, and to demonstrate again what makes lacrosse so great. The concentration of skill and talent coming to this area in the coming week is something only Baltimore could pull off.

I would like to dedicate this post to the late Yeardley Love, of Baltimore's own Notre Dame Prep, who played at the University of Virginia and was preparing to graduate this spring. (Photo Credit: May 2008, Jim Rogash/Getty Images North America,http://www.ncaa.com/sports/m-lacros/champpage/m-lacros-div1-index.html,Algerina Perna, Baltimore Sun,www.facebook.com .)

A Documentary Everyone Should See: "The Cove"

Directed by National Geographic photographer Louie Psihoyos, "The Cove" (2009) is an eye-opening documentary that follows the story of former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry (of "Flipper" series fame) on his quest to raise awareness about and stop mass dolphin killings in Taiji, Japan. The film features commentary by several international representatives, diplomats, and activists, as well as interviews with Japanese officials, as it chronicles the daily battles waged between Japanese fishermen and officials and the brave souls who are attempting to put an end to the annual slayings.

I first watched this video in my AP Environmental Science course but strongly believe that such an important issue should be brought to greater national consciousness. As "The Cove" reports, an estimated 23,000 dolphins and porpoises are killed annually in a secluded cove in Taiji's National Park. The dolphins are trapped in this cove, which serves two purposes; the hidden area prevents documentation of the massacre, and allows fishermen to more easily corral the animals and execute them. In the cove, the dolphins are as easily caught or killed as fish are shot in a barrel.

The film crew follows O'Barry and a cast of deep sea divers and activists, including "Heroes" star Hayden Panettiere, on a mission to place hidden cameras around the shielded harbor, in hopes of recording incriminating images to prove the Japanese cover-up of the killings. These activists develop new technologies, including cameras disguised as mossy rocks. The team creeps along the surrounding cliffs in the dead of night in order to evade patrols and position the cameras in various strategic locations in order to retrieve the best evidence. Additional measures include the commissioning of a plane (which runs under the pretense of "entertaining the Japanese children") to fly over and retrieve aerial footage of the killings.

O'Barry introduces us to the killings in Taiji and candidly blames himself for them. He feels that he created the entertainment market for dolphin shows early in his career, and maintains that while he created the "Flipper" series with good intentions, he failed to foresee the dangerous consequences of the obsession with dolphins that he would inspire in the public. Over 50 years ago, O'Barry captured five dolphins and launched the "Flipper" series, which soon caught on as a global phenomenon. After the death of his dolphin, Cathy, however, O'Barry recognized that keeping the dolphins in captivity was cruel and unnatural, and has spent the subsequent years of his life trying to erase the impact of his television series.

Today, the dolphin meat and dolphin entertainment industries are massive, and incomprehensible numbers of the mammal are killed or captured each year in the name of providing cheap (and dangerous-- dolphin meat is high in mercury concentrations) meat and superficial dolphin shows and swim with dolphin programs. As a result, O'Barry sees it as his responsibility, and to an extent his penance, to end the killings in Taiji and to raise global awareness for the horrible treatment that dolphins receive in captivity.

Japan has, in recent years, repeatedly denied that any such killings take place. At international conferences, the nation's officials reject claims that Ric O'Barry and others make, alleging that the dolphins are herded into the cove and murdered by the masses. In Taiji, the cove's surrounding area is barricaded off not only by sharp inclines and steep cliffs, as well as dense natural vegetation, but also by barbed-wiring, signage, and men, including the film's infamous "Private Space," who make it their job to keep outsiders from witnessing what goes on down in the water below. Day in and day out, the Japanese men line the water's edge, obstructing any view of activity in the cove. These men do not hesitate to push cameramen and O'Barry around, nor to tail their cars or to pursue them into the cove's surrounding bluffs. Private Space and his crew pose a constant threat to O'Barry and his team, and attempt to threaten and intimidate the team into giving up. Their efforts force O'Barry's team to take up additional precautionary measures, which include sending out decoy cars and attempts to confuse "Private Space." Private Space and his men frequently corner O'Barry and detain him for questioning; of course, O'Barry lies. Regardless, these dangerous men only add to the obstacles already imposed by customs regulations, international relations, and property rights.

Perhaps most shocking is the fact that a large portion of Taiji's population, like the rest of the world, has absolutely no idea about the events occurring annually just offshore. Japanese who were interviewed were similarly shocked to learn that dolphin is sold and consumed in large quantities as a meat, and those Japanese who are aware of the extent of the killings and of the dolphin meat market, are on a mission to stop it. The film profiles two local fathers who are fighting to take dolphin meat out of the mandatory lunch meals fed to their children in local schools.

The film brings to surface (pun intended) issues affecting human health, international treatises, and ethics issues regarding the treatment of animals and conducting diplomacy. Producers of the film were successful in painting dolphins as sophisticated and intelligent creatures, potentially capable of feeling emotion and registering thoughts as humans do. By establishing their similarities to humans, the crew produced a more resonant message that, combined with the horrific practices that they shed light on, are sure to produce real change as more people view their documentary. Ric O'Barry's movement will certainly gain force and manpower, and I, personally, hope that this happens sooner rather than later. By focusing on individuals like Ric O'Barry, his divers, other volunteers, and the Japanese fathers, Psihoyos forcefully conveys to viewers that every person counts and can help turn around the dire situation that these wondrous creatures face.

MIAA Action: High School Sports Pick Up Just As Careers Draw to Close

If you're in the area, be sure to check out these upcoming MIAA Conference championship finals.

In boys' A Conference lacrosse, the Boys' Latin Lakers take on the St. Pauls Crusaders Saturday night at 8PM at Towson University's Johnny Unitas Stadium. Under Armour's All-America HS teams were recently announced, and both schools supply a number of players to this field. Earlier this month, BL escaped with a 3OT regular season win over the Crusaders, who are looking for revenge when it really matters.

The next night, catch Gilman's Greyhounds in the baseball finals at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, Maryland. It will be worth the drive. Coming off another late-inning win, the Greyhounds have extended an unlikely season and are looking to come home with a championship, an ideal finish to a season in which they have only dropped five games thus far (knock on wood.) Led by former Baltimore Orioles Larry Sheets and Cal Ripken, the Gilman team features a cast of dependable and experienced seniors, as well as a contingent of very promising younger players, in their sophomore and junior years, who are already stepping up with big contributions. The Greyhounds' depth would seem to suggest good things are in store for seasons to come.

(Photo Credits: Gene Sweeney Jr., Baltimore Sun. Jenn Abrams)

Peter Schmuck Defends "Getting Your Preak On"

In his blog, "The Baltimore Sun" writer Peter Schmuck recently defended Preakness organizers, particularly for their decision to make "Get Your Preak On" the slogan for this year's Stakes. After race organizers received national attention and came under fire for the not so subtle connotations that the slogan suggested, he forcefully argues a counter-case against these criticisms and defends the Preakness as an event central to both Maryland's tradition of horse-racing, and to its economy.

He successfully makes the case that in light of the officials' recent steps to prohibit bringing alcohol into the race facility and to reign in (pun intended) some of the rowdier infield traditions, their decision to use a sexy slogan is excusable, and perhaps necessary, in order to maintain some of the race's unique flavor. This after all, as Schmuck notes, is not the place to come and drink Mint Juleps. While for some, the Grandstand and Black Eyed Susan scene may be the place to be seen on Preakness Saturday, if you are looking for a horse race free of the infield antics, you might be better off taking a road trip to Kentucky.

(Photo Credit: Karl Merton Ferron, Baltimore Sun.)