An intern's rite of passage... high school football.

In any career, you've gotta start at the bottom and work your way up.

Most interns working at office jobs find an endless stream of faxing, brewing bitter coffee, and random monotonous tasks that would make even the Wal-Mart greeter's job look stimulating. But if you find yourself in the environment you love - going home every night with more paper cuts than decimal places on your paycheck (if you are lucky enough to be paid at all) is absolutely dandy.

The journalism world, I've discovered, requires less faxing but still has its own rite of passage: high school football.

Why high school football? Its relatively easy, there's usually more games than reporters, and if misspell the 3rd-chair trumpet player's last name, no one really notices.

Its usually pretty simple stuff, fan photos with a point-and-shoot camera or experimental projects.

When it comes to covering high school football games, I'm no rookie. This is my sophomore season; I spent the 2008 season shooting highlight videos for the Fort Myers News-Press and this year shooting video for the Naples Daily News. Regardless of newspaper or county, school or season, some things never change.

The notebook experiment

Being an intern, I'm not blessed with the universal media passport a.k.a. press pass, and until recently I didn't even have a name badge. So more often than not, I have to do a little convincing to get admitted into the games. After a while, I started to notice that when I carried my pink notebook under my arm, it was like my credentials skyrocketed.

Almost every time, the band booster parent taking tickets at the gate would knit their brow and purse their lips, but as soon as their eyes fell to the notebook under my arm, I could almost hear them think: "Oh, okay, she has a notebook. She's legit."

"Yearbook staff?"

I can admit it - I look really, really young (I'm 20). Wipe off the mascara, throw a Hollister t-shirt over my head and you'd probably ask to see my driving permit. Every Friday night, I always get at least one person - sometimes a student, sometimes a parent - thinking I'm on the yearbook staff. Usually the conversation goes as follows:

Fan: Can I see the picture?
Me: Uh, yeah, okay.
Fan: COOL! Are you gonna put this in the yearbook?
Me: Well... no.
Fan: Aw, why not?
Me: I work for the newspaper.
Fan: Really? They hire high school kids?
Me: I'm not in high school... I go to FGCU.
Fan: ...oh.

Everything aside, covering high school football does have its perks, and I actually really enjoy going to the games. I don't mind hot dogs for dinner every Friday (I really love hot dogs), and getting to make a trip to my alma matter is always interesting (and, thankfully, the one school I didn't have to argue my way into.)

I'm also a PR intern for the Florida Everblades... except that requires more faxing.