"I spent years covering big-time sports, from Division I college teams to the National Football League and Major League Baseball. It was fun at first, but it got old pretty quickly. The athletes and coaches are kept so isolated from the media. For the past five or so years, I have grown to love photographing sports again, but not the big-timers. I love preps. You have access to the athletes, and coaches don’t seem to hate you yet. You can watch a team win the regional basketball championship and just ask the coach, as she walks off the floor, if it would be OK to step into the locker room with the players. That’s what happened when the Bixby girls basketball team defeated Owasso for the regional championship. The players erupted with happiness when coach Tina Thomas entered." — ​Mike Simons, Tulsa World Magazine
See the rest of the content in the latest Tulsa World Magazine at tulsaworldmagazine.com.Â
