Early to rise...

"Can you shoot this?" the e-mail said.  Monday morning 6:55 AM (Yes AM)

Sure, why not...
I left the house at 5:50 AM to be on-site at West Point at 6:30 AM.  I had the above shot in mind, but was not sure how it would play out.  As I walked down the hill from the parking lot, I could see players leaving the weight room and walking across the practice field to the athletic center.  I hustled over and tried to get a low, long shot of the players crossing the field by the moonlight, but that didn't work.  So, I peaked inside and grabbed a couple of shots of players stretching.  I headed back outside to see if there were any late comers.  I heard a few players running along the fence, so I set up for the above shot.  I used a wide angle zoom lens, I popped on my strobe, dialed back the flash exposure, grabbed an exposure for the sky, composed the frame, focus and wait... Click!

Army football has re-arranged their spring practice schedules to have the players start at 6:55 in the Foley Athletic center.  This will give the player/student/cadets a chance to get their school work done in the afternoon, have dinner as a team, work on their military training and get a good nights sleep.

Coach Ellerson said in his interview that he has used this method at other schools and it worked well in keeping the players grades up as well as getting in the spring practices required.

At West Point, the cadets are up early anyway so why not use this time to work out.  The football administration worked with the Dean of Students and other logistical departments to re-arrange their class, transportation and meal schedules to fit this into their day.  Since they Academy has the players for the weekends, they can use that time to get in some longer practices and conditioning.