A University Press magazine
PICTURING A LIFE
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Inside: People, Trainers, Horses and more
April 2019
INSIDE
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T R A I N E R S
C A R T E R
P E O P L E
© University Press 2019
A PRIL 2019 E DITION
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EDITOR Cassandra Jenkins
MANAGING EDITOR Olivia Malick PHOTO EDITOR Noah Dawlearn
12 H O R S E S
STAFF Cade Smith Abigail Pennington Claire Robertson Daniel Pemberton Damara Jones Cheyenne Ard Dallas Rector
16 R E L I G I O N Rachel Hellums Morgan Collier STUDENT PUBLICATION ADVISORS Andy Coughlan Stephan Malick
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Passionate Moves Madeline Brewer Madeline Brewer has always loved to dance. “When I was a senior in high school, I noticed there was a belly dancing studio in town — and really fell in love with it,” the Vidor senior says. Madeline studied at The Belly Dance Studio in Beaumont and after two years was hired at the Jerusalem Hookah Cafe. The speech and hearing science major has danced professionally for three years. Madeline says she has adopted different techniques to form her own style while respecting the origins of the dances. “When I’m dancing, I’m trying to interpret the romantic, grandiose music, and make you enjoy it the way I’m enjoying it,” she says. “The music is passionate. I’m trying to interpret that passion — but I’m not trying to be seductive.” Madeline says belly dancing is a simple and fun hobby. “It’s good for all ages and all body types,” she says. “People feel like they could never move that way, or they don’t have the body for it, but once you start doing the moves, and watch yourself in the mirror, it will make you fall in love with your own body.”
Story and photo by Claire Robertson
PEOPLE
April 2019
PEOPLE
Vlog Life
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Amber Davis “What’s up, guys? Welcome back to my channel.” That’s Amber Davis’ catchphrase on her YouTube channel, “Just Amber J.” In a growing world of social influencers and internet famous stars, the Opelousas, La., junior strives to be a light in an easily influenced society. “I always want to be that positive light in somebody’s life,” she says. “I want people to turn on my videos and from the beginning, it makes their day.” Amber says she joined YouTube after her cousin told her that she had a personality meant for vlogging. “I love being able to entertain people and show who I really am,” she says. “Just Amber J” is a lifestyle channel, and the communications major says she is excited to create new videos. “I love fashion, it’s my secret talent,” she says. “I throw outfits together and take fashion risks, because I have a vision and I need to execute it,” she says. At the end of the day, Amber says she is on YouTube, not for the views, but to express what she believes and who she is. “I want people to know me and have a voice for the things I believe,” she says.
Story and photo by Morgan Collier
Cutting Up Brittany Gonzalez
Brittany Gonzalez has customized and designed clothes since she was a senior in high school. The Houston sophomore’s mother showed her the basics of the machine, and from there she experimented and taught herself. “I just do it for fun, that is really what it started off as,” she says. “Sometimes, I would go to Forever 21 and I would just see stuff that I didn’t like, or things that I thought I could do, but I could do better than what they did.” What started as a hobby turned into a small business once people started to notice her work. Brittany creates her designs on a computer and prints out the pattern. Next, she places it on a piece of clothing and uses a heat press to make it stick. “The process is pretty easy,” the nursing major says. “It usually doesn’t take me too long, depending on the design. Sometimes I can make things within 30 minutes, sometimes it can take me a few hours — it depends on what I am putting the design on.” Brittany also designs accessories, footwear and cups. She’s also done designs for LU’s Black Student Association and Sigma Gamma Rho.
Story and photo by Damara Jones
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PEOPLE
Curiosity to Build Jacob Hotchkiss Jacob Hotchkiss’ curiosity about computers started in high school after he and a friend had gotten bored of playing Xbox and paying $60 for the Xbox live membership every year. “We were trying to think what we wanted to do,” the Port Neches junior says. “My friend said, ‘Well, I’ve been wanting to build for a while.’ I thought, that’s perfect, let’s build computers.” Jacob began to dig around online and look for parts to start up his new hobby, but soon realized computer building is expensive. “We had to decide what we wanted and didn’t want, because building computers is all about budgeting,” he says. “(The parts) for our first computer cost around $900.” Jacob sold his first computer to a friend for $500. Building and selling computers is something that he’s thought about doing in the future as a hobby and it inspired him to be an electrical engineering major. “You know, some people flip houses and sell them,” Jacob says. “Maybe I can flip computers and sell them — who knows?”
Story and photo by Cheyenne Ard
Green Therapy Mason Mathews
Mason Mathews has been into plants since he could walk. “I spent a lot of time learning,” the Lumberton senior says. “I’d always watch and do everything. I remember asking what every single plant was called. I would walk around with my grandma’s hand, barely walking, and I would ask, ‘What is this? What is this?’” It soon became much more than just a hobby — it’s also “green therapy.” “I’m an anxious person,” Mason says. “It’s really helped, being able to stimulate my brain every day. It feels so great to care for something that its life depends on you, and you get the reward of seeing it grow.” The Lamar advertising major has his own plant room. “I’m almost to 100 plants — I have 87,” he says. Mason’s hobby isn’t just therapy, he says the health benefits are great, too. “I promise, you can walk into a room and you can feel a difference in the oxygen levels,” he says. “It’s so crisp, so clean. The plants really do create a positive, energetic, uplifting environment where I can really get work done and just prosper.” Everyone should own plants, Mason says. “You should not be afraid of houseplants,” he says. “They speak to you. There’s a plant for everybody.”
Story and photo by Rachel Hellums
April 2019
PEOPLE
Scaling New Heights
When she begins her shift at the rock wall in the Sheila Umphrey Recreational Sports Center, Grace Granger takes no time in gearing up her harness and preparing to climb. The Groves sophomore has been climbing for two semesters, with more than 134 climbs. “After my first climb I found myself coming back day after day and couldn’t stay away,” she says. “After my first week I had 10 climbs, so I put my name on the mile-high club chart and came in every day that semester.” After spending so much time on the wall, Grace thought it was only natural to begin working there. “My interest came from working at church camp where we had a rock wall and challenge course, and I loved working that — I love being in
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Grace Granger
the air,” she says. “But I think I really keep coming back because of the challenge.” The mathematics major says she was never much of an outdoors person, it was only in college that she began to develop her outgoing mindset. “I have met so many new people and have tried so many new things since I have been here, all of it much more interesting than just staying in and watching TV,” she says. “If we are not careful — the weeks, months, and years can blend together. You look back and your entire life has passed you by. You have to make the most of every day.”
Story and photo by Daniel Pemberton
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NOT JUST PRETTY PICTURES
Story and layout by Cassandra Jenkins • Photos by Noah Dawlearn
PHOTOGRAPHER KEITH CARTER REFLECTS ON CAREER WELL LIVED
“Fireflies,” above, is one of the photos that made Carter famous. His unique style reached photographers around the country who immediately sought to hire Carter to produce the same kind of work. Carter, right, uses his Deardorff camera from the 1950s that he used to create most of his original images.
Picture a little boy around the age of five standing outside, a brown Hawkeye camera around his neck as he snaps frame after frame. Fast forward about 15 years and picture that same little boy, now a young adult, standing, new camera in hand in front of a calm river where a few fishermen cast their rods in the hazy glow of sunset. Photographer Keith Carter, a cup of tea in his hand, surrounded by the accomplishments of a successful career, describes the first time a camera was put in his hands, and the moment he fell in love with photography. “Well, I have a photograph from when I was five,” he said. “I don’t really remember a lot about how I got that camera, but I think my mom, who had been a photographer, must have given it to me for my birthday or Christmas.” Carter was studying business at Lamar University when he took a class that changed his life. “I was a business major, but I wasn’t particularly interested in that, so I took one art course that I loved,” he said. “It was a design course and my mother had always been a professional photographer. We were a single parent household since I was five, and I went back and asked her if I could borrow her camera and she said yes. I went down to the river and photographed some guys fishing. It wasn’t a great picture, but it’s probably my first serious thing. “I had them processed and she said, ‘Well honey, you have a good eye, you have a nice sense of light,’ and I tell people it’s probably just good parenting that kind of put me on the right track. I thought ‘OK, I have a good eye.’” Carter recalls his childhood fondly as he remembers his mother, a strong single parent who owned her own photography studio. “When my father left, she started a small studio,” Carter said. “She had been, as a college girl, a photographer of other college girls. She would travel around the Midwest. So, I grew up around it. She always had a
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small studio and she always worked hard. I was mostly interested in the things guys are interested in and it wasn’t art at that time — guitars, Cadillacs, hillbilly music and all that kind of stuff.” Carter said he truly fell in love with photography after that first design course and started his journey as a self-taught photographer at the age of 20. “In the beginning, like a lot of people, we didn’t have photography courses out at Lamar, so I pretty much was self-taught,” he said. “I spent a lot of time getting books from the library and whoever’s book I got, I would be them for a while — I would just replicate them. I did that for almost 10 years while I learned everything I could learn. I did all the little jobs I could do around here at the same time, and then I took a bus trip to New York.” Carter said the decision to hop on that bus to New
York at the age of 22 shaped his life and set the course for the rest of his career. “I wrote the Museum of Modern Art and asked them if I could come up and see their collection, that I was a serious scholar,” he said. “I got a letter back from them that said, ‘Yeah, you can come up. Who do you want to see?’ I only knew three or four photographers, and so I sold everything and took the Greyhound bus to New York City in February. It was the least expensive way to get there. I thought I had enough money to stay a month, but I lasted about three weeks and it was cold. “But I saw all these great prints, and for me to see the people whose work I’d really admired, and that the museum collected, see where they spotted and did little things and it was exciting — it changed my life.
See CARTER page 21
‘’I wanted to make raggedyass pictures that were smart.” — Keith Carter
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Body, Mind and sport
Story and layout by Cassandra Jenkins • Photos by Noah Dawlearn
ATHLETIC TRAINERS HEAL MORE THAN INJURIES
LU assistant athletic trainer, David Kovner, assists Dallas Martin, junior linebacker, in using the underwater treadmill.
When an athlete goes down, whether it’s on a wet field, a dry court, or in the middle of a diamond or dirt road, the crowd goes silent as they wait to see if their favorite player, friend, son or daughter will get back up. In that moment, coaches, fans, media, family and friends do the only thing they can do — wait. As the crowd watches, figures, usually clad in khaki shorts and collared shirts, walk to the player to assess the damage and help the athlete to their feet. Lamar University’s athletic trainers aren’t often seen or heard, but they play a vital role in ensuring athletes are healthy and taken care of from time of impact to the time of return.
Emily Ngiratmab and David Kovner, assistant athletic trainers underneath head athletic trainer Joshua Yonker, have seen many athletes through some of the toughest moments of their careers. “I feel like for a lot of us, as athletic trainers, that’s the reason why we love our job,” Kovner said. “That’s why we love doing it.” The trainers work spans from the moment an injury happens, to the moment that the athlete returns to the field. “Whether that’s running on the field or the court and providing emergency care, or evaluating the injury postgame or the next day in the athletic medicine clinic, and then doing
treatments and rehabilitation throughout the injury until the athlete’s return,” Kovner said. When an athlete is injured, the first person they see when they look up is an athletic trainer. Being the first person on the field can be scary and overwhelming, but both Ngiratmab and Kovner said their training allows them to be a picture of calm. “We are so well trained, and we do so much through repetition and training that it’s almost second nature,” Kovner said. “At least for me personally, I get in the zone. Everything else is blocked out and I’m so focused. As far as being the first one out on the field and making that call whether the athlete can return or if we need to
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hold them out, that’s why we go to school. That’s why we’re so well versed in athletic injuries — we go through extensive training and schooling for that. We feel confident in our abilities to assess and make those clinical diagnosis and decisions — it’s through a lot of repetition in training.” Both Ngiratmab and Kovner graduated from different four-year universities before completing their master’s at Lamar, a training program that led them to full-time jobs as assistant athletic trainers last year. “Because of our educational background, 80 percent of the time, if not a little bit more, we can tell you what’s going to happen before it happens, or we can foresee something happening,” Ngiratmab said. “There is a lot of things that happen really fast when an injury happens. We take into consideration not just your basic how did they get hurt, but we think of the week the athletes had. “What I love about athletic training specifically, and the medical field, is the holistic approach. We really do care about not only the physical aspect but the psychological aspects — the type of week the athlete has had and that kind of stuff. We take into consideration all of those, in addition to the injury.” Ngiratmab said that staying calm in times of injury is key to keeping the athlete and the crowd calm. “It’s funny, because when I look back and I think of when athletes have gone down and gotten hurt, it low-key plays in slow motion in my head,” she said. “I’ll see it and I’ll know to just give them a minute and let them just lie on the ground or if I need to get out there. But, regardless, one thing that is pretty common in the athletic training field, is very seldom will you see an athletic trainer run towards an injury unless it’s football, just because of the size of the field. Most of the time, when someone goes down, we have to be calm, because if we run in there people will be like, ‘What’s going on, what’s going on?’ In those moments, we definitely don’t panic. Yes, our mind goes through all the things that could be and what we need to do in the series of what needs to happen, but we definitely have to be the sense of calm in the scenario, because the athletes are down, the coaches are worried, the players and the fans, and all eyes are on you in that moment. We have to make sure we’re carrying ourselves in a way where we’re bringing calmness to the situation.” During the time between the initial injury and the athlete’s return, the trainers are working full time around the clock to help the athlete heal and return to play as soon as possible. A process which requires a lot of time and effort, Ngiratmab said. “Another cool part about athletic training is that we don’t just deal with it when the injury occurs, we see when they actually come in and we try to correct and do preventative medicine,” she said. “Whether that’s ACL preventative or if they come in with a history of back issues. We definitely get to know each individual athlete regardless if it’s an entire football team or it’s the men’s or women’s golf team. It doesn’t matter how many there are, we take the time to get to know them for all those things.” Kovner said his main job is to take care of student-athlete welfare above all else, even if that means holding back the time of return. “If, for any reason, the injury that they sustained can either become worse or cause them to injure something else, our main goal
Assistant athletic trainer Emlyn Ngiratmab, practices fire-cupping, a technique used to bring blood to the surface after an injury, can also be used to increase flexibility and revive tired muscles.
See TRAINERS page 18
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HORSIN’ AROUND AT TYRRELL PARK he stables at Beaumont’s Tyrrell Park were built by the Civil Conservation Corps in the late ’30s and have housed hundreds of horses over the years. Now, nearly 80 years later, the stables are still in use and house a variety of rescue, personal and boarder horses. In addition to boarding services, lessons are offered to riders of all skill levels, Rita Hall, stable manager said. Trail rides are available to adults and children over eight years old. Trail rides are $45 for one hour and take riders around Tyrrell Park — de-
T
Photo story package by Noah Dawlearn and Abigail Pennington
pending on the weather, returning or advanced riders may be able to ride through Cattail Marsh. Cattail Marsh includes 900 acres of wetlands, and offers a variety of recreational activities with a new boardwalk and more than eight miles of gravel levee roads for jogging, hiking, biking, horseback riding, bird watching and wildlife photography along the banks of Hildebrandt Bayou and Willow Marsh Bayou. “We’re currently riding out on Cattail Marsh a little bit,” Hall said. “We make the
loop around Tyrrell Park. One option is to go straight up Cattail Marsh, and then we can ride down the bayou and come back. We can do longer runs with experienced riders. “We don’t take beginners out there because we might run into hogs. Sometimes the horses don’t want to go because they know it’s a long ride, so you have to have enough control over the horse to be the boss.” Before the horses hit the trails, they have to be cleaned up and have their hooves checked for rocks and mud. “When we get a horse out for a lesson, or
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to ride, we always brush them anywhere the saddle is going to touch them,” Hall said. “We don’t want them to have an issue with dirt clods under their saddle pad or girth. We also clean their hooves — with all the rain, they get rocks and mud stuck on the bottom of their hooves — it would be like walking with a rock in your shoe.” Lora Cranmer, ranch hand and rider, has a routine that she follows every time she gets ready to ride her horse, Tobi. “When I plan on riding him, or using him for a lesson, I bring him up to the front and put him in the cross-ties to clean his legs and feet as necessary, then I brush him out,” she said. “I choose a saddle and pad that I know fits him and get his bridle from the tack room.” After gathering Tobi’s tack, Cranmer begins the process of saddling him up. “I put his saddle pad on first, then his saddle,” she said. “Right before I get ready to take him out of the cross-ties, I put his bridle on and check to make sure that everything is OK and it’s not catching or rubbing on him. Before I mount, I always check the cinch strap to make sure that it’s secure and the saddle doesn’t slip when I get on.” Whether one enjoys riding the trails, or taking a lesson, the stables at Tyrrell Park has something for everyone. For more information, visit Tyrrell Park Stables on Facebook or call 730-7073.
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God & Government Which one?
Keep religion out of state business Commentary and layout by Olivia Malick
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” The first 16 words of America’s First Amendment were written to prevent Congress from advocating for one religion over others, and to prohibit Congress from impeding on an individual’s religious practices. More than two centuries later, somehow the United States has regressed from a nation that was intended to be a haven of religious liberty, to a nation that shoves religion down everyone’s throats. Religion is on our money. It’s in our national anthem and pledge, and it’s in our politics — but it shouldn’t be. The United States sees itself as a secular nation, but how can that be true when we so obviously favor Christian religion over any other, and religion in general over secularity? There’s nothing wrong with individuals practicing their religion as they choose, but when they begin to slip those practices into public spaces — like prayers before school functions such as graduations — then it becomes a problem, because it takes away everyone else’s choice. I’m not a religious person, yet during my high school graduation, I was subjected to five minutes of prayer. Why is a religious students’ freedom of religion more important than my freedom from religion? It wasn’t like I could leave for a few minutes and come back when it was over — we weren’t allowed to leave our seats. It would’ve been fine if there was just a moment of silence, that way everyone could do their own thing. That is what we did every morning for four years of high school.
“One nation, under God...”
UP illustration by Olivia Malick
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Also, the only prayer said was a Christian one. There were no prayers for Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, or any other students. I went to a public school — where a variety of students from different religious backgrounds were ignored. So, if we are going to have religion in our schools, why don’t we have every religion? Now, that seems pretty complicated, so let’s just do what’s easier and more ethical, and eliminate religion in public schools if there isn’t consent from every student. If students want to participate in a prayer before a football game, or any other school function, that’s fine. What’s not fine is when it’s assumed that all students want to participate without them explicitly saying so. Religion that is not academically based needs to stay out of public schools. If a public school offers a “Bible study” course, then it is the school administration’s responsibility to make sure that the teacher is teaching the subject only through the lens of academia — not through preaching. It is not appropriate for teachers — or anyone for that matter — to enter a public school and advocate for their religious beliefs. Students are there to learn the school curriculum, not attend Sunday school. If we are going to say we’re a secular nation and claim to be the “land of the free,” then why don’t we practice what we preach? According to USHistory.org, in 1954, “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance in response to McCarthyism and the Red Scare. At the time, Congress members wanted Americans to be separate from “godless communists.” I guess they forgot that there are godless Americans, too. The Pledge of Allegiance, in and of itself, is problematic. In a republic, why should people be pledging allegiance to the government? To make matters worse, God is involved. Soldiers are forced to salute the flag during the pledge, irrespective of their own beliefs. In school, if we didn’t stand for the pledge, we could expect to be berated by classmates and even teachers, sometimes resulting in punishment, even though the school couldn’t legally make anyone stand for it. It’s not disrespectful to not participate in something you don’t believe in. It is disrespectful and harmful to indoctrinate children from a young age with the belief that blindly promising obedience to a government is equal to being a “good” American. It’s amazing to think that when my grandmother was born, in 1932, America was more secular than it is now. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared, “In God We Trust” the nation’s motto, replacing the former “E pluribus unum” or, “Out of many, one.” “In God We Trust” was first used on American currency in 1864 on the two-cent piece, when the United States was embroiled in the Civil War, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. It made its first appearance on paper currency in 1957. If the government isn’t trying to force religion on its people, then why is it on our money? Seeing “In God We
“Congress
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shall make no law
respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof....”
— United States Constitution, 1787
Trust” on money every day of your life is a subliminal message that if you don’t agree with the ideology, you are out of place. Why doesn’t our money say, “In Gods We Trust” or “In Allah We Trust?” Again, this is the government giving preference to monotheistic, Judeo-Christian religions. God on our currency and in our pledge is a violation of accommodationism, the judicial interpretation that the government may support or endorse religious establishments as long as it treats all religions equally and does not show preferential treatment. Including “God” on our money, therefore, is a constitutional violation. There should be no mention of religion when it comes to government business. Individual politicians can have their own views and they can talk about them when it’s appropriate. Taxpayer dollars should not be used to fund church projects — it goes against the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from making any law that favors one religion over another, or religion in general over non-religion and viceversa. Public funding should not be spent on private religious
schools, nor should it be used to pay the teachers at those schools. The Ten Commandments should not be displayed in front of court houses, city halls, or any other government-related or public property. Even if it’s erected and paid for by citizens and not government officials, the commandments have no place in government — they are not law. The separation of church and state has to have an allor-nothing approach — either every religion has to be represented everywhere, or none of them can be. This isn’t a takedown of religious practices or the people who subscribe to them. Atheist, agnostic, humanist and other non-theist people have the same rights to freedom from religion as everyone else has to freedom of re the fact that it is not a Christian nation. I’m proud to be an American, but this country is supposed to be for people of all races, beliefs and creeds — and it isn’t. It’s time for America to join the 21st century. Let’s be the secular nation we were meant to be. Religious liberty — in all its forms — is a fundamental human right, and it’s about high time America respected that.
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from page 11
Statistics from a study done by Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville in 2016
33.2% of NCAA college athletes reported an occurrence of depression symptoms 25.7% of college athletes reported not knowing how or where to access treatment at their university
44.5% athletes reported not receiving education regarding mental health issues as a college athlete
is to make sure that the student-athlete’s welfare is kept,” he said. “So, if that’s our call to pull them from participation, that’s what we’ll do. We don’t just look at the immediate welfare, we will also look at long term. “Say the athlete has an ankle injury that they have been rehabing and we don’t feel that they are ready to return to the field, but they do feel that way. We are going to hold them out because we don’t want them to go out too early and re-injure themselves, and then have ankle issues for the rest of their life. We look at the long-term approach as well as short term. We still want to get them back on the field as quickly as possible, but in a way that keeps their welfare intact.” Ngiratmab said it can be difficult to reason with an athlete who is eager to return to their sport when they are in the middle of the season. “Typically, when an athlete is in season, the demand of return to play is a lot quicker,” she said. “If they are in season, if they get hurt in the game, they will have to see us immediately after. We will do some type of treatment, kind of tell them what to expect, what they need to do that night, and then they will have to come see us before class or between classes the next day. Then, in addition, they
Suicide is the No. 2 leading cause of death among college students will have to see us again before practice depending on if they’re participating in practice or if we have to modify their workout. They may be allowed to do a few of the drills, non-contact drills, or that kind of stuff. We will make those modifications as needed and then they’ll still have to see us after practice. “So, we get in contact with them multiple times throughout the day. Not just that, but we work very closely with our coaches, and our strength and conditioning coaches. So whether it’s an ankle injury, a knee injury or a shoulder injury, we do things to keep them training, but in a way where we’re not worsening the injury or irritating it, but to allow them to enable to keep their level of training. It’s all about being adaptable and understanding the demands, but also keeping in consideration their welfare.” Kovner said getting to know the athlete helps in the treatment process and allows a foundational trust between trainer and student. “We have degrees in athletic training, kinesiology or exercise science, and then we go and take our national certification exam and become nationally certified,” he said.
“What those programs do is they give us a basic foundation of knowledge of how to manage an injury from evaluation to diagnosis to treatment to prevention. We have that basic knowledge of how to treat, but we get to know these kids very well, from the moment they come here as a student athlete to the moment after they leave. “We know what they like to do in treatment, we know what they don’t like but still need to do in treatment, and we work with that. We also take into consideration their class schedule. They are student athletes — students first. So we won’t only have one time in the day to do training, we can work with the student athletes to find the best times for them. It’s a lot of give and take, a lot of working with them as people. They’re not just athletes, they’re people that we work with — it’s very personable and personalized.” Ngiratmab said the athletic trainers are “forever students,” and are always learning new methods and techniques to keep their patients healthy and up-to-date. “Treatment options are always growing and always getting better, or something can progress and get better,” she said. “Not only do we have that foundational knowledge, but we also continue to follow certain protocols — under-
April 2019
‘’We can adapt — we can go anywhere and be anything.” — Emlyn Ngiratmab standing the healing process, the physiological effects, immediately after an injury, 72 hours after an injury and three weeks after an injury, and just knowing how to adjust our rehab and treatment and progression and get them back. “The cool thing about being an athletic trainer at this time is the internet and social media. When other healthcare professionals come up with something new, they post it, they talk about it, so it’s easier for us to attain that new information, which is kind of cool. When an athlete sees an NBA player doing this rehab exercise, and all of a sudden they see us doing it in here, they get excited to do it. “It’s a challenge. It’s something that kind of keeps them motivated to come (to rehab), because when we spend as much time with them as we do it gets tedious. We definitely try to match their personality and give them something exciting, get them something to work towards a goal. When an athlete gets injured, they can get depressed about being unable to play. Ngiratmab said the trainers try to channel the athletes natural competiveness. “They’re all competitive, so it’s like, ‘I bet you can’t do this,’ ‘Bet you can’t do another set,’” she said. “Now, it can become something exciting, because they’ve met a goal in rehab and then they understand the bigger picture of things. “It’s not just the injury, it’s treating the psychological aspect as well. You could be healed after an ACL surgery, but to get back into the game, that’s the biggest battle, right? It doesn’t matter what your body is ready for, if your mind is hesitant, then I’m not comfortable putting you back in, because that’s where injury occurs. Psychology is such a big aspect, so through rehab and injury, we are also kind of feeding into them their confidence and reminding them, ‘Hey, we’re going to work through this, but remember when you struggled with this a couple weeks ago, now look at you.’” Ngiratmab said after seeing several athletes injured across different sports last year, she noticed a pattern of mental health issues. “I think, for me, each year something different has stood out to me — this year, the biggest thing that I realize I want to learn more about mental health,” she said. “There has been a pattern of different mental health issues that have happened this year, and as athletic trainers, we have that foundational knowledge to know enough that something is going on. We spend enough time with athletes to know there are red flags. “Unfortunately, and I’ll admit it, it’s something I want
to know more about, because I don’t know where to go from there besides referring them to a counselor. But this year has made me realize that I want to do more research to know how to handle those situations. I found myself frustrated a lot, and it’s not just with one sport, it’s been across the board. Regardless of the athlete, the common factor has been mental health battles, and not just with injuries, but with life. That something I want to be better at and emphasize.” Kovner said he also sees more occurrences in the mental health of his athletes. “I’m not sure if it’s just more common these days, or if my foundation of knowledge has grown and now I’m just able to recognize it better,” he said. “Medicine is forever growing, and as a medical provider, I’m always looking to improve myself and get better at what I do, and mental health is on the top of my list — being able to provide more care for someone who has a mental disorder. “We could refer an ankle injury to an orthopedic physician, but because my foundation of knowledge is so strong with that, I am able to progress an athlete from time of injury to return of play. I want to be able to do the same for any type of injury, and that takes in to account the psychesocial aspect as well.” Kovner and Ngiratmab both said nothing feels better than after the long process of healing and training, than to see an athlete return to play. A feeling that makes the hard work they do worthwhile. Ngiratmab said the deeper she got into athletic training, the more she understood what athletic training does — everything. “We can adapt — we can go anywhere and be anything,” she said. “Each time, I have just fallen more in love with what we do — even through the hard times. It has definitely made me realize that this is what I am supposed to do. This is the type of impact I want to have on people.” Ngiratmab graduated from Sterling College in Kansas before receiving her master’s in kinesiology in 2015 at Lamar, and earned a secondary master’s in nutrition before becoming assistant athletic trainer at LU. She oversees cross country, track, volleyball and tennis, in addition to being the clinical coordinator for the athletic training apprenticeship program. “It’s funny, because when I left my undergrad, I told myself two things,” she said. “I was going to move closer to California and I wasn’t going to go to a Division I school — and it’s the opposite. There have been tough times. There have been times where burnout gets real, especially making that transition from being a student to being certified. But, one thing I have appreciated the most about Lamar is our staff. (Head athletic trainer) Joshua Yonker, the type of mentor he has been in my career, especially post grad, I don’t think he realizes the depth of the type of mentor he has been. In addition to that, the staff that has been here as I was a graduate assistant, they have been crucial mentors, too. “It’s really the people you work with that make the vision that we have worth working harder towards. We want
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to exceed expectations, because we all have people who have that same vision. My experience here has never been one I could have planned or imagined, but it has been one that I know has shaped me remarkably.” Kovner received a bachelor’s in athletic training from Stony Brook University in Long Island, NY, before transferring to Lamar to receive his master’s in kinesiology. During that time, he was a graduate assistant athletic trainer in the athletic medicine department under Yonker and alongside former classmate, Ngiratmab. After his graduation in 2017, he became a full-time assistant where he oversees men’s and women’s basketball, golf, softball, baseball and soccer and also assists with the athletic training program in teaching courses. “It’s unique,” he said. “Not everyone gets to return to their alma mater and work full time with your former roommate and colleague. It’s definitely a unique position, and it’s something that I am forever grateful for and love. It’s about the people you work with. The job title and everything else is great, but it’s the people that make it all worthwhile.” To learn more about the athletic training program at Lamar, visit the health and kinesiology page at lamar.edu, email josh.yonker@lamar.edu, or call Kovner or Ngiratmab at 880-7394. Or visit the Dauphin Athletic Complex located next to Provost Umphrey Stadium.
Assistant athletic trainer, David Kovner, takes current basketball player and general studies major, T.J. Atwood’s blood pressure.
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April 2019
CARTER
from page 9
“However, the thing that really changed my life was when I first got off the bus at the terminal. I had never been there. It’s February, it’s snowing. I was going to walk down to the Village, and I passed a skinny guy in an overcoat with a fat cat and he had a sign around his neck that said, ‘Poems, $1.’ I walked right by because my dollars were precious and then I thought, ‘Oh, that’s bad karma.’ So, I went back and bought the first poem on his list, and the first poem on his list was ‘Rock Your Ass Off,’ which consisted of non-rap before the rapping stuff. All he did was shout at the top of his voice, ‘Rock your ass off,’ about 40 times.” Carter said as he sat on the bus on his way back to Beaumont, the one thing that kept replaying in his head was his encounter with the man and the poem he had bought. “I’m on the bus riding back home after I’ve seen all these great things and I thought, ‘I’m going to get really focused and I’m going to work really hard and I’m going to rock my ass off,’ he said. “It’s a metaphor, but I still think that today. Whatever keeps you working in a focused direction, that’s like a mantra — just go rock your ass off.” When Carter returned home, he said he was ready to pour all of his assets and hard work into his career and build the life he wanted for himself. He found immediate inspiration in his hometown. “I decided, particularly when I came back from New York, that where I live is flat, tangled, deeply green, hurricanes roll in, you have four out of the five poisonous snakes in North America and three out of the four carnivorous plants,” he said. “You have white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. You have black imagination. You have Vietnamese industry. You have Mexican mythology, crackers, peckerwoods and rednecks, all in this gumbo culture, and I thought, ‘My God, that should be my subject matter.’ “I thought, I should just photograph my own roots — and that’s the
first time anybody started paying attention to my work. It didn’t look like anybody else’s, or not too many people’s anyway. That is why my career started to evolve.” Carter’s photographs of Southeast Texas were compiled in the book, “From Uncertain to Blue.” “Once I did that first little book, all of a sudden people all around the country, art directors, would hire me to go do stories or do something — this is before I started teaching at Lamar,” he said. “The reason they hired me was because I had a certain kind of style, not because I was the best photographer. I just looked at things in a certain way and I started to take this place with me. I tried to make the same kinds of photographs everywhere I was, and so it just evolved through books, looking at art, reading poetry. After a while you just become yourself.” The book grew from a project that was originally meant as an anniversary gift to his wife Pat. “My little book started out as a whim 30 years ago just as a 10th anniversary present to my wife,” he said. “I was trying to think of something that she’d like to do rather than buying champagne or something, so I suggested we take off every weekend for a year, drive around and visit 100 small places in Texas that had unusual names. So, we did. We ended up spending two years doing that. “Two of the towns were called Uncertain, which is not far from here, and Blue. The book was called ‘From Uncertain to Blue,’ and when that came out, I didn’t really anticipate it being a book. It was just a sort of a thing to do that was pleasurable with her. But when that book came out all kinds of things happened. That’s at an era before books were online all the time. It was print and like the Holy Grail in my world. “What happened was that all these high-powered photographers in Seattle or Chicago or Los Angeles got that book, and because it was so different from what they did, they would end up sending it as a gift or a thank you to art directors and different magazines that had sent them on jobs. I learned this later. Then the art direc-
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Carter flips through the original prints of his first book, “From Uncertain to Blue,” a book that helped him find his personal style as a photographer and included photos from 100 unusual places in Texas.
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April 2019
tors would give me a call and say, ‘Would you like to come do this kind of job?’ based on that book. Then things started to happen, and you know, they kept talking amongst themselves for a long time and even after I start teaching, I would do what we call editorial work. Most the time I was hired because I made a certain kind of ragged picture rather than a certain kind of pretty picture. It was kind of ironic the whole way that it evolved.” Carter said what he loved about the experience was that he also found his love for black and white photography and began to develop his own sense of style. Before that, he said he was just practicing other photographers’ styles. “I personally think it takes a while to find your own style,” he said. “You have to try out a lot of things, and you have to find people whose work that you admire and try out their styles a little bit. After a period of time, when you assimilate those things, it seems to me it’s just a natural involvement that you start to find your own pathway — but you want to have something to say. You want to have a reason to make the images. But, for 10 years, I was everybody, I tried them all out.” Carter said he fell in love with black and white because of its longevity, aesthetic and romance. “I was always in love with black and white,” he said. “Today, color’s the default. I love color, too, but there’s something electrifying to me about black and white. For one thing, it didn’t have the seduction of color, it was really like writing a Japanese haiku as opposed to a long lyrical poem. It renders light to me in a more beautiful manner. “Another thing that interested me was that black and white photographs, properly done, would last up to 2,000 years. Color at that time had an informational life of about 40 years before they faded, so part of it was aesthetic. The other part was it just electrified me. I just loved looking at things. It was like looking at something for the first time when you printed it in black and white, and the longevity interested me — aesthetics and longevity.” After “From Uncertain to Blue” became a hit, Carter published several other books, including “Bones,” “A Certain Alchemy,” and “Fireflies.” A new collection, “Keith Carter Fifty Years,” spans his half-century career. “My 50-year book came out, and if you were me, you’d be really pleased,” he said. “First of all, I can’t believe it’s been 50 years because you don’t feel that much differently, but I can look back now and see how things evolved. When I was younger, I couldn’t see how all these things would evolve, it was just what I wanted to try and do and there’s a difference. “I came from the generation and the temperament where I didn’t really care so much about the money, I just really wanted to have an interesting life and I wanted to do interesting work. I married an interesting and smart woman, and one thing happened after another, and here we are — it’s kind of miraculous.” While Carter loves Texas, he said one thing he likes about his profession is the opportunity to travel. He has worked in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Great Britain, Italy, France, Monaco and the Czech Republic. He will soon visit Japan. “I think that travel is a good way to renew yourself,” he said. “The irony is, I don’t try to make pictures about where I am, so much as I try to make pictures that just happen to take place where I am, and there’s a distinction. You try to make pictures that are something rather than about the place. That’s like National Geographic stuff. That’s about the place and they make some beautiful photographs. “But I don’t generally make beautiful photographs — I make interesting photographs.” Carter said he feels like he accomplished exactly what he set out to do when he made that chilly trip to New York. “My life has been extraordinary,” he said. “I’ve been doing it now for 50 years and it’s still extraordinary — it’s been great. Photography is the most exciting thing to me. There is a certain romance to it, processing all your own film, using beautiful papers, working under orange light, the sound of running water — I love it all.”
Darkroom to Digital Keith Carter spent most of his career in a darkroom, but with the turn of the century and the digital age, he switched to a Canon EOS 5Ds. However, Carter still spends at least one day a week in the darkroom with prints.
Carter spent many years in a darkroom, feeling the run of water in his hands, waiting patiently for his prints to appear and spin film through his standing camera. As years turned into decades, the process changed from darkroom to digital. While Carter said he felt fortunate for his upbringing in that era, he also embraces the change and sees it as a new and different way to love his art and all its changing methods. Carter used to use, and still often dabbles with, a Deardorff 8x10 folding view camera from the 1950s, but as the digital age progressed, he has switched to a handheld digital Canon 5DS. “Part of my love, and that’s true of anybody that loves whatever medium they choose, I love the history of how this all evolved,” he said. “If you look at the history of photography, one process has always supplanted another process as it evolved. The irony is that none of them have ever really gone away. In fact, there’s probably more interest in antiquarian and historical processes than ever before.
“I think of the digital world as a natural evolution. I come out of the darkroom tradition. I still spend at least one day a week in the darkroom, and I love the sound of running water, precious metals, mysterious chemistry. I love all of that. On the other hand, I use digital a lot, too. It allows you to do things more rapidly, and it allows you to put together images that you really probably couldn’t do in the analog world, in terms of compositing and things like that. “I think it’s pretty miraculous. I feel thankful that I’ve had the experience of coming up in the historical dark room and working in it, and to live through this. “I think of the digital world like a bazillion angels on the head of a pin — it’s really amazing. I think it’s a wonderful step up. I’m really not interested in the perfection and the process as much as I am in the possibilities of what it’ll let you do — there’s a difference. I’m a big fan. I’m on my way to Japan next month and I’m all I’m going to do is take digital.”