Hope on the Sidelines

Senior Hope Kelsey hits home with her home game hype videos.

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Faith Roach

The football team rushes out from the tunnel under the Friday night lights. They circle around a coach and begin to sway back and forth in their pre-game ritual. Amidst the chanting, players is senior Hope Kelsey looking for the perfect shot. Hoping to capture the moment, she raises her camera up over the heads of the players. Every home football game this season, Kelsey could be found on the sidelines getting shots like this one.

Smile! Senior Hope Kelsey at an LSHS football game. On the side lines while the Tigers played at home against Truman. “They’ve changed a lot, looking at my first one and then my most recent ones. I’ve come so far in the different types of shots I’m getting.”

“I just try and get shots of good plays and what the players are doing on the sidelines warmups and handshakes. You know, all of the fun stuff that they do to hype each other up for games. Then, every Thursday night, I put it together and make like a little recap-highlight-hype-video kinda thing to get the players ready for the game the next day,” Kelsey said.

Kelsey began making her hype videos after filming her first home game for Tiger Broadcast.

“I loved it. I had so much fun. Like, the atmosphere down on the sidelines is so different. So, I went home that night put together a football video and posted it,” Kelsey said.

The response from her first video encouraged Kelsey to continue to showcase the team’s intimate moments. Since then, her videos have accrued quite the fan base.

“Oh my gosh those things are legit,” broadcasting teacher Elaine McDonald said. “It just seems like, in the last year or two, these hype videos have become fairly popular. She started uploading them to her Instagram posts last year and she kind of had some followers. Maybe a hundred two hundred and three hundred last year, but now, this year they’ve blown up. We’re talking seven hundred, eight hundred views,” McDonald said.

McDonald is not the only one impressed by Kelsey’s videos. The football team appreciates her work as well.