During packed games on the seventh floor gym or at the track and field, you can expect to see a group of guys preparing for a game of their own. Cameras out, walking around looking for the best view to catch all of the action, talking to coaches and players on how they want to shoot the game. All of this in an effort to get the perfect shot.
The Jones Sports Media team, founded by Parsa Koucheki ‘27 and Zach Eversmann ‘27, was created to showcase Jones’ variety of sports and the members’ love for photography. Going into its inaugural year, members of the sports media team go from game to game capturing photos for Jones’ many teams, which are later on posted to social media and used in promotional materials for the games.
“I’ve been doing photography, and then I decided maybe I want to do sports photos, and I really liked doing it,” said Koucheki. “The team formed because I saw that happening at other schools, and I was like we don’t have one, so maybe I should make one too.”
The concept for the team started last year when the initial core four members, including Orlando Andrade ‘27 and Shen La ‘27, began taking pictures of their friends during Jones sport games.
“I’ve liked photography a lot and I had recently bought a camera about a year ago,” said Andrade. “I had a few friends on the boys volleyball team and they were like, hey, you should come take photos of us. It was really fun and that’s pretty much how I got into it.”
After taking pictures throughout the year, the core four knew that they wanted to expand their operation. After coming up with the concept for the team, members reached out to administration to see what could be done. Principal Dolan directed the four over to David Gilmer, the new athletic director, who helped the team get ready.
“It was initially Parsa’s idea, and then he pitched it to Zach, Orlando and I,” said La. “Mr. Gilmer helped us get accommodated, asked us what pictures we wanted for our media passes, and then he got those printed and laminated for us. After that is when we really became official.”
As the fall season has started for many of Jones’ teams, the sports media team has been there the whole way, and their photos are spreading across social media.
“We’ve had a pretty good start for being such a new part of the school and have already started taking pictures for multiple games,” said La. “I know Parsa has been doing a lot of soccer games. It’s been going really well. We’ve been allowing people on social media to really spread awareness around Jones sports.”
Alongside the sports media team, Koucheki and Eversmann also founded a sports media club to get more people into sports photography. Created with the same passion as the team, the club is open to anybody who wants to become a better photographer.
“The sports media team is definitely more official than the club since we have media passes and everything,” said La. “We can go to games and directly communicate with the coaches of those games to see how we want to work with them, while the club is more of an after school thing to get people introduced to photography.”
Although the club is not as official as the team itself, the hope is that people who join the club can eventually become involved with the team.
“I’m hoping we can get a lot more people into sports photography, and have more fun with it,” said Koucheki. “It’s really fun. I’ve met a lot of new people through this.”
For now, the core four members are hoping to keep the actual team small to keep everything manageable and to properly cover each Jones sport.
“Definitely want to keep it manageable so we can still have a good balance between the team, our other extracurriculars, and academics,” said La. “What we’re doing right now is really good. We’re going to a lot of sports games, both major and minor, and are hoping to build more awareness for every sport and to build more awareness for sports photography.”
Through both the team and club, the core members are passionate and hope to continue building sports photography at Jones in the coming years.
“We’re hoping to use the club to hopefully keep the team going, even after us four are gone,” said Andrade.
