OUR VIEW: Take our cameras, not our freedom

“Excuse me ma’am, you’re going to have to leave that nine hundred dollar camera with me,” a phrase now heard by soccer moms at all USU athletic events. Sorry, mom. Your son may be the track star, but you your camera must remain in the car.

The recent ban on “pro photo equipment” is completely irrational. Not only is the athletics department limiting potentially good PR through blogs, wikis, social networking and personal Web sites, but they are putting more restrictions on fans who, until last Saturday, had little or no motivation to pay to see a game.

There is no doubt that the rights of the players should be protected, but to completely disallow such potentially positive PR is an unwise move for a club that can’t afford any more negative press. The continued allowance of small digital cameras is in complete contradiction to the ban. As the consumer “point and shoot” digital camera industry continues to produce equipment that rivals the quality of some aging pro cameras, the difference between “professional” photos and those made by “amateurs” are very few, as far as mega-pixels and resolution are concerned. The zoom capabilities of this latest generation of digital cameras also make them much more powerful than their predecessors. Do these powerful new cameras have any less capability to take away a player’s rights?

Furthermore, how many of the people that own “professional” equipment actually have the technical know-how to use them?

One might wonder if eventually all cameras will be banned, along with cell phones. With the $30 general admission price of the upcoming football game against BYU, rest assured that Best Buy’s “point and shoot” digital camera sales will be up on game day since the ticket takers at the gate will be telling those nice mothers of all the BYU football players that their fancy device, purchased solely for the preservation of those happy memories, is not allowed… to ensure the player’s rights.

We call upon the USU athletics department to compromise or fully rescind the ban for the sake of the university and the athletics program. Not only is it damaging to the reputation of our great institution, but it limits the enjoyment of the deteriorating pool of fans. We believe that a compromise can be reached.

Then again, it may not be all bad. The new ban on all professional photo equipment may give rise to a largely overlooked genre of artists, such as creative writers. Since Aggie fans will not be able to see pictures of the events on the blogs of their friends and fellow fans, they will be reading descriptive haikus about Peter Caldwell’s missed field goal or a Shakespearian sonnet about Darby Golden’s end zone sack that led to a touchdown. Like the creative arts classes, this may be USU’s way of encouraging students and locals to more deeply immerse themselves in the arts. At the very least, Shakespeare would compliment the move.