2005 

This one is my favorite, partly because we knew it was our last, but mostly because of the amazing skills that Chris was developing. He had just started his editing job in New York City so I couldn’t see what he was working on. Every week I sent him game tapes to review. What he had in mind was not just a highlight video but a tribute to the past legacy of Elks volleyball. We collected old game footage, newspaper clippings, posters, and momentos to tell the story of the beginning of Elks volleyball. Be sure to watch the ending as well as the beginning!

This team finished in the state semi-finals with a record of 20-7.

2004

This video was so much fun because we connected with Mike Sexton from the World Poker Tour. It seemed everyone was playing Texas Hold’em poker (for fun) at the time, so it seemed logical to run with that theme. It turns out Mike Sexton is from Fairmont East and he was very happy to lend his voice. Chris actually created the amazing Elks volleyball logo that first appears, along with many other graphics.

This team finished state runner-up to Moeller, but the final match was very exciting. I can still hear Ron Hartke’s voice: ‘85%, first serve in, this guy likes deep cross court, watch the short serves!’  Team record was 21-7.

2003

Chris had this idea to design this video as a movie, and it really worked well. Everything from the green screen, to ‘from producers Chris and John Devine’ , the end credits, it was all meant to resemble a movie. Even the dvd case and cover looked like a movie dvd. Little did we know he would be editing real movie trailers in 2 short years.

There were thoughts of a three-peat state champion and this team was talented enough but the Elks fell short against Moeller in the finals?  Season record was 21-4.

2002

For the beginning of this video, I was anxious to make use of a 3D titling software and motion graphics program that I had recently purchased. For the end, Chris put together an emotional summary of the winning moments of the state championship game against Watterson. Repeat State Champs!

This team beat Watterson in the State finals and finished with a impressive record of 27-2.

 

2001

Any year that you win a State title has to be exciting.   My idea for the start of this video was to recall some of the past great players who contributed to  building Elks volleyball. This was my fourth year watching varsity volleyball and I had already seen and admired the talents these players had. In the 2005 video, Chris took this to a much higher level with his tribute to the legacy of Elks volleyball. The BIG highlight for this year was, of course, winning the State title! The memories of that day inside St. John Arena are still vivid. 

 Final record was 18-7

2000

Coach Reynolds had several pre-season conditioning sessions so I took advantage of that to video some of it and used some ‘Rocky’ training montage music. Senior Erik Versen was the first of three Versens to play Elks volleyball. Soon to follow were Brett and Ryan. Chris Devine was also the first of three, with Ben and Ryan, aka ‘Chuggs’ to follow. There were also brother-brother combinations with Phil and Zack West, Chris and Pete Merrell, and maybe more that I am not aware of.

 The final record was 21-6.

1999

 Last year I had fun with a Batman-theme opening for the Elks ice hockey video. This year, many of the volleyball players were caught up in the WWF (World Wrestling Federation) excitement. So I proposed to Chris that we start with a WWE diversion. He took it a step further when he found a morphing program called Snappy that he spent hours on (with our limited computer capacity) to change each player into a WWF star. We had fun with this one!

The 1999 team went to the state finals against Elder, but lost,  and finished with a record of 19-8.