Heads up, head down

And I don’t bail at the first sign of trouble. I’ll stay with the play with my camera as long as possible before getting out of Dodge. I’ve nearly run over football players on the sideline in my haste to move out of the way of an oncoming play. The hardest kicked soccer ball I’ve ever seen in my life came while shooting a San Jose Earthquakes game at Santa Clara University’s Buck Shaw Stadium. I initially thought I could parry it away but, when I saw the velocity on it, I wisely dodged my head to avoid being drilled.

Basketball is probably the most tame, but there is not a lot of room on the end lines at many of the gyms around the Peninsula, with Burlingame having only about 3 feet from the end line to the wall.

But, again, I have managed to avoid any flying bodies or basketballs.

Same goes for baseball, which is probably the scariest. It is the one sport where I take precautions when it comes to finding spots to take pictures. Camera people from Cal Hi Sports used to shoot games from behind the umpire — not behind the backstop, but on the field, behind the umpire, wearing those old-school, no-flap helmets.

That’s insane.

Softball, however, is the one sport where I’ve been clipped twice. The first time happened at Capuchino, when a hard line drive foul past the third-base bag gave me a shinburger as I was stationed at the end of the dugout. It was so long ago, however, that I can’t even remember the year. I think Marty Jenkins might have still been coaching. Or was it Todd Grammatico?

Either way, that one hurt more than the one that got me last week at Carlmont, but the one in Belmont was probably more embarrassing. Set up on the right side of the backstop at the Carlmont field, I was shooting between the chain-link fence.

During an at-bat, I took a series of shots and as I was editing them on my digital camera when the next pitch came. I saw out of the corner of my eye that the ball was fouled off back and to the right. Without a net, I would have been in danger, but earlier in the game I had noticed that there was netting above the fence that protected the fans in the stands along the first- and third-base lines.

So as the popup came back, I didn’t give it a thought.

Suddenly, there is a sharp pain on the top of my head as the foul ball bounced off the middle of my dome. It was more of a surprise than pain, although it didn’t feel good. But like any baseball or softball player, I didn’t rub up. I acted like nothing happened as I continued on with what I was doing.

After the inning, I looked up to see what happened. While the netting protected the stands from foul balls, it stopped just short of the overhang of the backstop — leaving a gap of a couple feet between the net and the actual backstop.

You couldn’t try to hit it through the opening, but the ball managed to find its way through and bounced off my noggin. Don’t worry, I’m OK.

***

Mike Hill, who was co-offensive coordinator at Sacred Heart Cathedral in San Francisco, announced last week he had been hired as the new offensive coordinator at Menlo School.

Hill was part of an 2021 SHC squad that captured the Central Coast Section Division III title, 27-3 over Christopher-Gilroy, and the school’s first-ever state championship, when the Irish beat Northview-Covina 48-29 in the 4-A final.

Hill will replace Austyn Carta-Samuels, who had served in the same capacity the last two seasons, helping quarterback Sergio Beltran set the new Central Coast Section touchdown record last season with 52 while accumulating nearly 4,700 yards of offense.

Carta-Samuels, who starred at quarterback for Bellarmine before going on to play at Wyoming and Vanderbilt, is going to play professional football with the Dresden Monarchs in the German Football League. He’ll be replacing his younger brother, KJ Carta-Samuels.

Hill played professionally in the Arena Football League and is also a private wide receiver coach.

Nathan Mollat can be reached by email: nathan@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: 344-5200 ext. 117. To report scores or tips, email sports@smdailyjournal.com.