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MIKE MINARDI: The Eyes of an Artist, The Nerves of a Surgeon, The Compassion of a Priest |
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 by Bob Casterline (as it appeared in the Buccaneer Magazine, July, 1991)
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If you're driving through Tampa's
toney Palma Ceia section some
day soon, and a man sitting on his porch
with a camera and long lens appears to
take some photos of your car, don't be
alarmed. You're not under surveillance,
that's just Mike Minardi, going through
spring training.
That's right. Even though Minardi is
one of the world's most-honored photographers, he still feels the need each summer to do some warm-up preparations
for his work as a National Football League
photographer.
"I'll sit on my front porch," he explains, "with my camera and lens in my
lap, unfocused. Then, as a car comes
along and reaches the edges of my property, I'll grab my camera and focus on
the bumper before the car draws even with me."
That kind of practice helps Minardi
stay a quarter-second ahead of the action he's shooting from the sidelines at
Tampa Stadium. "I don't want to see the
picture I'm taking at the time I'm shooting," he says. "I want to see the action
just before and after. If you see the action
you want, you've missed the shot."
It's that attention to detail that has
made Minardi a premier NFL photographer since 1976. His photos appear in
Game Day Magazine, as well as in NFL
ads and commercials, on NFL posters,
T-shirts, calendars, and even bubble gum
cards. And, now, in The Buccaneer Magazine. The centerfold posters and covers
of our June issue and this issue are
Minardi pictures, as is the black-and-white action photo of Rob Taylor in this
issue's cover story.
The 45-year-old Tampa native will
shoot between 15-20 rolls of 36-exposure
film at a Buccaneers game, looking, he
says, for "the essence of the game." He's
not only interested in the on-field action,
but the emotions that ebb and flow
through four quarters of hard-fought
professional football.
WORKING TWO cameras at a time,
one with a long lens, the other with a
short one, "I'll tune my subconscious
into the game. It becomes almost instinctual because if I stop to think about
it, it's too late. I rely on my intuition as to
where a play is going, and 70- to 80-percent of the time, it seems to be right.
I have my 'secret places' on the sideline
I like to go to when I get a hunch, and a
lot of times I find I'm the only guy there.
It gives me a lot of good pictures that are
missed by people who've stayed too close
to the line of scrimmage," he says. "I
want to be right there in the game; I want
to smell it, to get it all over me."
That instinctual relocating has hurt
him only once. "Last year I was run down
by Testaverde and three Forty-niners.
Vinny was scrambling, and I had him in
my long lens when suddenly he wasn't
there. I grabbed my short-distance camera and there he was again, right on top
of me. I snapped a picture just before he
bowled me over, and three Forty-niners
fell on top of him. I heard cracking noises,
and I thought it was my bones, but it
wasn't. I've had tripods and cameras broken before, but that's the only time I've
ever been hit. I still had to go recuperate
in the press room for 15 minutes -- it
really knocked the wind out of me."
That may be an extreme case of getting the game all over him, but he
wouldn't have it any other way, because
it makes up for not being able to watch
and enjoy the flow of the game. l'm so
busy with technical problems, like reloading,
seeing how much film I have
left, checking my batteries, unbolting
stuff, seeing if I have the right lens, that
I don't often have a chance to really enjoy
what's happening on the field."
THOSE TECHNICAL problems
make him one of the few people in the
stadium who appreciate --even look
forward to--television commercial timeouts.
"They at least give you a breather.
And when your camera jams, you pray
for a TV time-out" he confesses.
The Buccaneers have been Minardi's
favorite team since they began playing.
Until then his allegiance had been to the
Green Bay Packers, a team he fell in love
with the afternoon quarterback Bart Starr
led them from two-and-one-half touchdowns behind to a victory by orchestrating three touchdowns in the final 90
seconds. As for individuals in the game,
he says he's especially partial to Mike
Ditka, head coach of the Chicago Bears.
"He's a real tough guy, and a good leader,
says Minardi. "Still, I want the Buccaneers to win every game they play."
A Jesuit High School and University
of South Florida (degree in marketing
and management) graduate, Minardi
wasn't heavily involved in sports as a
youngster. He played Little League baseball and sandlot football, but thought
he'd make his mark in the courtroom
rather than the football stadium. He even
attended law school at Florida State
University, and was working as a law
librarian in the Virgin Islands when he
decided he was more interested in pho-
tography than anything else.
He was operating a Ro-Mo camera
store and studio when his first major
sports assignment came his way, shooting for the Tampa Bay Rowdies. "I didn't
even know anything about soccer," he
says, "but they liked me and they liked
my pictures."
NOW HE'S AT home in nearly any
sports venue. "I've been up to the sky
boxes a couple of times, but everybody
looks like ants running around. I want to
get the action, I want to be in the action.
In fact, I was in that movie they made
about Ricky Bell (CBS-TV's "Triumph of
the Heart"). I didn't know they were
making it, and I saw him jump over the
fence and beat up on the fan. I thought it
was happening, and I ran right over and
started firing, and said, 'I got the first
NFL player to beat up a fan,' and sombody grabbed me and threw me down on
the ground and said, 'We're making a
movie here,' and it was so real, they left
it in the movie."
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