It’ s probably difficult to comprehend how a guy can live more than five decades and still know so little about football.

Especially when he lives in an area where a regional professional football team holds the record for winning the most Super Bowls, that being the Pittsburgh Steelers, of course, at six.

I went through eight seasons of high school football in which I missed only a game or two. That’ s not because I had an insatiable desire to learn more about the game, but because I had two kids in the high school marching band.

Somehow, I turned my brain off during the games and was able to turn it on long enough for the music. I tried not to let the drooling show.

I returned to the high school gridiron field earlier this month to try my hand at photographing a game.

The Star Beacon has three people who are pretty adept at shooting football. On this particular Friday, two of them weren’t available. That left one guy and a gaggle of games.

Since purchasing my Canon XSI at Christmas, I’ve been trying to put it through the paces.

My handsome, yet intelligent and thoughtful grandson, Henry, is a good photographic subject. Unfortunately, the little guy isn’t always around.

So I’ve taken to experimenting. When in a what-was-I-thinking mood, I volunteered to photograph a wedding. The results weren’t too bad at all. I captured the bride throwing her bouquet in the air in one frame and a female guest catching it in the next!

Then I tried shooting fireworks. Even without a tripod, they didn’t’ t come out too badly.

My photos of the moon were never that good before, but using the fancy camera and a tripod, the results were at least somewhat impressive.

So I told sports editor Donny “Mr. Jefferson” McCormack I would try to shoot the Conneaut-Champion game, even though past attempts by myself at such a challenge were a total bomb.

Night football isn’t easy, especially for a guy like me who can’ t recognize a game plan.

I went online to read discussions on shooting high school football. I wasn’t aiming at a Pulitzer, but I didn’t want my results to be something that could only be used in an inkblot test.

The Internet discussions helped me conclude: My telephoto lens was long enough, but not fast enough. That means it wasn’t good enough to capture action at night without it being blurry and bad.

I found a lens online that would work nicely, but decided at $16,000, it wasn’t worth it for one night. Not even three.

So there I was at Conneaut’ s revamped stadium with my inadequate equipment and puny knowledge of the gridiron. Sports guy Don, perhaps sensing I couldn’t shoot football, said he would be happy if I got some in-the-stands feature shots that could run on the Monday Morning Quarterback pages.

First person I noticed was niece Lauren, who just turned 15. So I spent the next 15 minutes embarrassing her in front of her friends, pretending she was a star and asking for her autograph. Lauren, however, refused to be embarrassed and took it all so well, I eventually gave up and went back to what I was supposed to be doing.

After getting some easy feature shots, I buckled down to the game. My goal was to get something halfway decent, ANYTHING, while it was still somewhat light out and I could shoot at a fairly fast shutter speed, which helps freeze the action.

I figured I would follow the football, but in most of the plays, I couldn’t see a football. Instead, the whistle blew, the players engaged in a sort of choreographed anarchy and then created a pile of people.

Thanks to my camera with its amazing autofocus and stabilizing lens, it looked in the three-inch viewfinder like I got some possibilities. Of course when a three-inch image is increased to eight or 10 inches on a computer, it can suddenly look like a return to the grassy knoll.

I was getting ready to leave at halftime, wondering if any of my shots would come out and kicking myself for not knowing more about the game. Am I the only American male who has never been to a professional football game?

I was told by family I couldn’t’ t go home without picking up pizza and when I found out that would be 25 minutes, I hung around for the halftime show. The old bando parent in me wanted to anyway.

I listened for awhile. The Conneaut band started with Ozzy Osborne’ s “Crazy Train” from my daughter’s era. Nice selection. The band played a version of the Monkee’s “I’ m A Believer.” Maybe it’ s time to leave. But as I was leaving, the band played a final selection. It was the Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black.”

If you don’ t know the significance of that number and have your copies of my September 2007 columns tucked away in your safety deposit box, just go to http://www.starbeacon.com/archivesearch/local_story_262183523.html.

My volunteering to shoot turned out positive. Enough photos were useable the sports editor ran one in the next day’ s edition and more in subsequent days. I got to hear a Stones song played by the band again. I got to tease my niece a little, always a good thing.

Do I know anything more about football? Nah.



A correction concerning last week’s column: The Grants for Grads program, administered by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, will help pay for downpayments or closing costs on the first home of an Ohio high school graduate who also graduates from college and then stays in the Buckeye State to start a career. I said you had to go to a public or private Ohio university. Spokeswoman Erin Biehl said it can be any public or private university anywhere in the country, as long as you come back to Ohio to live. She said the program should launch Oct. 19 and go to ohiohome.org for more information.

Lebzelter is special sections editor. E-mail him at bobleb@starbeacon.com or read past columns at bobleb.blogspot.com.