Los Angeles Lazers (1984)
The silence was eerie and the crowds surprisingly sparse as I entered through the glass doors of the Los Angeles Forum. I was there to shoot a cover story on the professional indoor soccer club, the LA Lazers. Jerry Buss, the owner of the LA Lakers, LA Kings, and the LA Forum arena, had recently purchased the Lazers, with the concept of adding creative programming to fill up the open time slots in the Forum’s schedule, and the LA Reader, who had hired me, thought it would make a good story.
I had always been interested in photographing athletes at the height of their athletic ability, and I was looking forward to this assignment. I arrived early that day to photograph Jerry’s son, Lazer team president Johnny Buss, and a number of the players prior to the start of the game. Having spent time in the past shooting the Lakers at the Forum, I was also anticipating to photograph the throngs of arriving fans that I had expected to see. But indoor soccer was not the NBA, and the crowds never materialized. But once the game begun the fans that were in attendance got their moneys worth. The indoor game was fast, furious, and exhilarating, with speed more like hockey than soccer (partly because it was played on a short, artificial turf field laid on top of the Forum’s hockey rink). It was end to end action, with many more goals and scoring opportunities then occurred on the much larger field of the outdoor game.
On my way home after the game, I thought to myself how it must feel for these talented, professional athletes to perform in a practically empty 17,500 seat stadium in front of just a smattering of fans. I figured there might be a more complex story to investigate here if I could only delve a tad deeper, so I requested photo credentials and continued to photograph the team for the remainder of the season.
I learned much during my season photographing the Los Angeles Lazers, and the series would eventually become the blueprint for many of my future sports projects.
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