A college friend of mine recently had an article written about him that highlighted his days as a college football player and what he has been up to ever since. It was part of a Then & Now series that talked about how his experiences as a college athlete led to his success after he hung up the pads. The picture above was the photo that was used in the article and my buddy (#78) is pictured pulling around and opening up a huge hole for the running back against Colorado School of Mines. After I read the article, I went back and took a closer look at the picture and it dawned on me that if you just expanded the frame of the picture a bit, you would see a whole lot more. The commonly used phrase, "A picture is worth a thousand words" certainly rings true not only in this picture, but also in the larger context of our individual lives. As I examined this picture, a flood of memories came rushing back.
While this picture focuses in on one individual, if you expand the frame a little more, you will see a group of men working collectively together to accomplish the same goal. I know the names of each of these men because they have helped shape me into the man I am today. They are men of all different shapes, sizes, colors, and backgrounds. They are guys that I argued with, fought with, won with, lost with, and went to battle with. In the end, we were brothers united around a common goal. We didn't always agree with one another, but when we stepped on the field, we were in sync with one another because we realized that individual success contributed to the overall success of the team. I also remembered Foster Field where this game was played. At the time, it was a grass field with a huge crown, which was common in Nebraska at the time because most teams in the state ran the triple option offense and wanted to run downhill as they approached the sideline. I remember the press box that looked like a double wide trailer on stilts and had a few rodents who acted as squatters. I remember the crumbling asphalt track that surrounded the field, the gate where the team entered the stadium, and the alumni who would show up for games and stand on the sidelines in their lettermen jackets to show their unwavering support for their alma-mater. I also remember this particular play call because it required the tight end to do a down block so the tackle could pull around and open up a hole for the running back. In this picture, that tight end is me and for once, I actually got the play right.
It is crazy how pictures can focus on one thing, but when viewing them, we have a tendency to expand the frame and see so much more than what is actually in focus. My guess is that any one of us can get on our phones, look at pictures and videos we have taken, and immediately provide details that aren't included in the frame. I contend that these details are more important than the picture itself because it sparks a memory that may have been filed away and almost forgotten. Years ago, I read about someone who took 1-second videos throughout the course of a year and put them all together in a montage. I thought it was interesting, so I took on the challenge of doing it myself and at the end, created the video HERE. Conventional wisdom would tell you that 1-second isn't a lot of time to recall much, but when I watched the video all these years later, I can provide details about each one of these clips.
The moral of the story (blog) is that while pictures are a snapshot of a moment in time, we are all better off if we can expand our frame and understand that there is more to the story than what we choose to focus on within the context of a picture frame. It is easy to focus on all the terrible stuff going on in the world and in our jobs without acknowledging the fact that if we just expand the picture frame a little, we might just see some pretty amazing things. For me, when I look back at the pictures I have taken as an educator, I am going to expand the frame and see people coming together to lend a helping hand, teachers who work tirelessly to help kids through very difficult times, people expressing optimism and hope, people laughing and smiling and checking in on their friends and colleagues, and people coming together to do whatever it takes to educate our kids. I won't put on a filter to try to make the picture better, I'll let the expansion of the frame do that for me.
#OwnYourEpic
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