Pretend you’re one of us and then make an ass of yourself.

Last night, my co-worker and I were photographing a community college football game about 30 minutes north of town. Another co-worker was there to take notes and write the story.

We were on the sidelines, snapping away, and the TV girl beside me was approached by a guy wearing a Florida sweatshirt and cap. He started talking to her — it sounded like they knew each other — then she asked him who he was working for.

He said he was working for my paper! And I had never seen him before in my life!

TV girl proceeds to tell me that this guy is a pathological liar who has been doing this for quite some time and that he used another newspaper last year to dupe SIDs into giving him a press pass. He apparently doesn’t want to pay for tickets and where better to be than the sidelines so you can coach the players? Uh huh.

So throughout the game, we watched this guy running from end zone to end zone. Along the way, he would stop and chat/yell at a player who made a mistake. When a HUGE play happened, he sprinted to the other end of the field. When the team ran onto the field to celebrate, he was leading the way to the mosh pit at the center of the field.

The best thing is that we have photos of him doing ALL these things. Eight frames a second, baby.

How this guy hadn’t been caught in the past is mind-boggling to me. However, we DID tell the SID and college president about the dude. His fun might be over.

All that I’m saying is you should probably check and make sure you aren’t “working” for a paper that has three staffers at the game. And you shouldn’t pretend to be a coach while using those media credentials because people will start to question the real journalists of the group. (We don’t play coaches or even communicate with the team until post-game interviews, btw.)

Sometimes I don’t get people at all, but at least we got a good laugh out of it.