Rider Practice

Last week, in the midst of a busy spell on the academic calendar in jschool, I go to cover an event I've been waiting to do for years. I'm talking about Roughrider practice and it was more accessible than I imagined.

I had tried emailing the Riders communication guy, after days I received an email back. I had asked to talk to Graham Harrell, after exchanging emails, they set up a time to call. But phone interview was not what I had wanted, told them I wanted to take a picture, and that's when they told me to show up at noon the next day. That way I could speak with Graham in person, following practice.

For a Saskatchewan sports fan, especially one would like to cover sports for a living, Rider practice was a great site.

I showed up at noon, a nice sunny day for the middle of November, according to the score clock there was still 10 minutes left for practice. So in the meantime, I had to check in with the Rider's media person, and got to check out the end of practice as the team prepared for the Western Final.

I knew the cameraman for Global TV, so I talked to him and that helped me get comfortable with the environment, which was filled with the local sports media. There weren't very many people in the stands.

When practice ended I waited around a while, as Graham ran sprints and chatted with other players.

Once Graham made it over, he was a had a grin and proved to be a very media-savvy person. His answers were quick and pretty descriptive, he'd been through a lot of interviews while at Texas Tech.

Overall it was a great interview and I think he enjoyed my questions, which ranged from his Dad to Bobby Knight to Wes Welker to Micheal Crabtree. Afterward, Graham through to Weston Dressler, so that I could have some good action shots of him.

Then, the communication lady for the Riders told me that this was the process to take whenever I wanted to talk to a Rider, and said to come back whenever I wanted - awesome.