Stop Motion Stake Out

Sweaty pairs of legs walk past me all the time here, flashing glances indicating all the coldness that student athletes are used to. The requisite blue nylon, of course, follows.

I've been sitting outside the athlete gym for six hours now, nursing a stop-motion camera.

Stop motion can be a misleading term. It originally refers to the stuttering 'look' you get when you take a 26 frame per second movie clip and make it 30 frames per minute. But the purpose is not to stop any motion; rather you do it to show the progression of a scene over a length of time.

Things have happened in this length of time that, to an ant, would seem like the monumental building and destroying of empires. Skyscrapers have gone up in minutes, starting with colossal steel supports, bent and twisted by mighty hands, then shimmering canvas spread between them. The giants sported and played among their new creations, taking cover when the sun burned and, growing tired of their confinement, coming out to play again despite the heat. Unfortunately, the worlds of our readers are a little bigger, and for us, very little has happened.

The only thing I've found interest in has been seeing the stars of the day, the players themselves, walking to and fro. This happens rarely, but every now and then Darren Collison walks out of Pauley, across to Acosta. Bo Bo morgan walks, slowly, up a flight of stairs. The youngerster, Jerime Anderson, looks behind him as he walks. They stroll past the tents, this age 18-21 shanty-town erected in their names, their graven images in everybody's minds sinking three pointers and navigating the lane. And as they walk past, not a word is said to them.