WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS

     There's never a lack of sports to cover in the Shawano area, no matter what season it is.
     While summer baseball is starting to wind down, Wisconsin's favorite fall sport -- football -- is just kicking up and dirt racing is reaching its climax with the end of that season in sights.
     My first assignment on Wednesday morning as a morning one -- I had to be on the road by 7 a.m. to get to Lambeau Field by 7:30 a.m. to capture images of Green Bay Packers players riding kids' bikes down to training camp practice. This was my first time shooting training camp this year and I'll tell you, it felt good being back.
     Football gets my blood going, it's my favorite sport to take photos of because of the action and the emotion involved in the sport. It can be tricky sometimes too, though. While Lambeau Field is lit very well during Packers' night game, high school stadiums aren't. It's the one time that I'll break out my flash — usually I try to avoid using flash as I like the natural light look much better.
     Training camp on Wednesday brought a few treats along with it, former NFL coach and announcer John Madden, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and former Packers general manager Ron Wolf were all in attendance.
    After about two hours at training camp, I was on my way back to Shawano to get started on my pages for Thursday's paper.
    Wednesday night brought along another sports assignment for me ... races at our local race track. It was a special night of racing with dirt track professionals in attendance. These guys run at a much higher speed than the local racers.
     It rained just before the start of the race, but they decided to go ahead with the races, so I decided to have a little fun and try to show the weather and the race in one image. I knelt down in the pits area and got a nice image of a puddle with a race car near it and the reflection of the car in the puddle.
    Overall, it was nice day to be shooting sports. Can't wait for high school football next week!

Green Bay Packers quarterbacks Aaron Rodgers (12) and Graham Harrell (6) at training camp Wednesday.

Green Bay Packers linebacker Desmond Bishop holds out his hand to catch a football during ball handling drills Wednesday.

Former NFL coach and announcer John Madden, left, visits with Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy.

The No. 1 car of Chub Frank sits at its hauler Wednesday at Shawano Speedway just after a storm went through the area.