When in college and for a few years afterward, I covered a lot of HS and college games as reporter/photog on the sidelines.
Two things I was certain of every single game: in HS games (but not college for some reason), the players on the sidelines spit almost continuously and either I or my camera gear "received" some spittle out of bounds (small reception pun there, or at least an attempt) -- never intentional I'm pretty sure, just a statistical reality testifying to the autonomic frequency -- I don't think any of them consciously knew how often they and their teammates did it -- so it was like dodging machine gun fire while navigating a mine field -- I got "hit" a lot.
The 2nd certainty was that there was no safe place to be with a lot of bulky camera gear and I was "tackled" quite often, but luckily only once had significant damage to my gear, but more commonly suffered contusions... when you are following a play or player with a telephoto lens while the play is in progress, "objects in the mirror" syndrome is unavoidable and you don't realize until actual contact that you are about to be flattened. On at least one occasion, I had the perception that the collision was "accidentally on purpose"... I've never seen anyone at any level penalized for flattening a photog or other non-organization member on the sidelines.
Didn't an NFL coach (or maybe it was college or HS) some years ago step a couple feet onto the field and "tackle" a kick returner headed for a TD? I'm thinking it was Tomlin... I remember well the time Woody Hayes punched out an opposing LB in the field of play in the late 1970s.
There is no requirement that I know of that sidelines people, whether part of a team or a photog/whatever, to move out of the way when the play comes right at them. And I, personally, have never witnessed any non-team sideline person go onto the field and tackle/interfere with the play, but I've read of a few cases where that happened. To be honest I have no idea if there's any rule or anything the refs would invoke -- who should be penalized for that if the person has no ties to either team and is simply there as part of their job duties for a 3rd party? Not as clear what to do as there is in MLB -- think fan interference on a foul ball or HR right at the wall. |
