by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
The American Dream may be to be able to ride a golf cart to work. For the two Ch. 12/25 sports photographers, it’s a way of making that dream a lot easier.
The station is located less than a quarter-mile from the Jacksonville Jaguars’ practice field and their preferred mode of transportation is a golf cart.
It’s not your ordinary golf-course based cart, either. It’s bristling with equipment.
“As long as we can see one of our towers (the station has four,) the cart is as good as a mobile truck,” said Mike Kaminski, who shares the cart with fellow photographer Chad Cushnir. “We have everything we need to broadcast. Dan (Hicken, the sports director) can take a microphone, stand wherever he wants, shoot the spot and we’re done.”
The station has had a cart around for 10 years “but it was more of a maintenance cart that we would borrow,” said Kaminski. “When the Super Bowl came earlier this year, the station sprung for a new one. There was so much traffic, and so many roads closed, that we needed one to get around downtown.”
The cart has a major advantage for football coverage over the big trucks.
“A cart can go almost anywhere,” said Kaminski. “The trucks can’t get inside the stadium fence. For instance, when there’s a press conference (in the media lobby,) I pull the cart up outside the door and string 10 feet of cable from the cart to the camera.
“If we bring the truck, it’s 100 feet of cable. Plus, I don’t have to haul 70 pounds of equipment that far.”
The cart is around the practice fields almost every day, even when they aren’t doing a live shot. It hauls the equipment more conveniently than one of the station’s mini-SUVs and the photographers can have a camera on their shoulder almost instantly, rather than having to open the back lid and shuffle through other equipment.
If a report is needed quickly, it’s a quick fix to bring the microwave antenna into action and beam the signal to the station’s main tower, which almost looms over the practice field.
The photographers are also popular with the players. The cart has a third seat, which faces backwards, and players hitch rides to their cars.
“It’s great for us and it only has a few limitations,” said Kaminski. “You have to remember that it’s a golf cart. If it’s raining, it’s not usable. Just like if you were playing golf, you wouldn’t use one.”