“Change your point of view”
Noah Aniser
I’m a soccer player here at Morningside and I usually have practice every day at 8:00pm. For this assignment, I chose to visit Olsen Stadium in the afternoon. I left my house at around 3:15pm and arrived at the stadium at approximately 3:30, right when football practice was about to start. I knew that football practice is at that time but what I didn’t know, was that Track and Field has practice simultaneously. So, the field was really crowded and loud. Similar to a game day but without the fans. I had the stands for myself and so I chose a spot and made myself comfortable. I tried to watch both practices carefully and maybe eyedrop one or two conversations between athletes and coaches. Unfortunately, I was to far away from the field to actually here a one on one conversation but crossing the track during their practice was not a good idea would probably have ended lethal. The only thing that I could constantly hear were the coaches yelling at their players and the uncomfortable sound of two helmets hitting each other. Occasionally I was able to see some facial expressions of either the football players when they took of their helmets or of the track team after they finished their run. The facial expressions varied from disappointment over a missed opportunity to happiness after a successful execution. It was interesting to see how much you could tell by looking into their sweaty faces without even knowing what exactly happened.
The stadium at that time was way louder, mainly because of the higher number of sweating athletes but also because of the music that the football team played while practicing.
Olsen stadium is usually not nearly as packed when I have practice. We go on the field right after women’s practice gets done. After us the lights turn off and Olsen goes to sleep.
Seeing the same stadium at a different time made me realize how important the role of the perspective is. The stadium has a completely different atmosphere depending on where you are located and what time of the day it is.