In one of Wes Kirkpatrick’s many photographs of Northstar sporting events, Nottingham wrestler Wroway Williams watches the referee’s count during a match.
Wes Kirkpatrick stands in front of Nottingham High School Jan. 22, 2014. Kirkpatrick has photographed thousands of Nottingham High athletic events. (Photo by Albert Rende.)
Forget about the tree falling in the woods making a sound. The real question is: If a Nottingham High School athletic team plays a big game, and Wes Kirkpatrick isn’t there to photograph it, is the game ever really played?
We don’t actually know the answer to that question yet, because the venerable Kirkpatrick has been on hand for every big game the school’s teams have played from the very start.
He was there when Jack Bell’s boys’ soccer team won Central Jersey Group III in 1986 for Nottingham’s first sectional title. He was there when Elaine Pittaro’s softball team won the NJSIAA Group III crown in 1987 for the first state title, and he was there a few years later when Peggy Howell’s softball team duplicated it.
He was there in all his glory a year ago when his good friend Jon Adams led the football team to the CJ III crown. Probably the only time he wasn’t there was when sophomore Grace Dwyer ran in the Nike cross country nationals last fall, although he did say, “If I was younger, I would really think about going.”
The race was run in Portland, Ore.
But none of that is what has earned the 74-year-old Kirkpatrick the title of “Media Mogul.” Anyone can shoot the big games.
Kirkpatrick has been there for every team. Boys or girls. Good record or bad. Warm sunshine or miserable cold. If the Blue and Gold are playing, Kirkpatrick’s probably shooting it.
“He is there to support every team, every season,” said varsity girls’ basketball coach Lauren Kelly, a former Northstar athlete. “It does not matter whether it is a championship team or a struggling team; he continues to show up as a photographer and a fan.
“He has provided my family and me with countless memories through his pictures and videos, and he has done the same for many generations of Northstar families,” added Kelly, whose brother Peter is going into the NHS Athletic Hall of Fame.
Mike Walsh coached three varsity sports before becoming vice principal last year. He saw Kirkpatrick. A lot.
Walsh said he feels Kirkpatrick’s contributions go beyond photos.
“Students and coaches feed off his passion, energy and enthusiasm for Nottingham athletics and student athletes,” Walsh said. “Wes is a fixture in our building, in our gyms, on our fields. I cannot imagine a Nottingham athletic event without seeing Wes cheering, supporting, and of course taking pictures.”
Track and cross country coach Melissa Foley is a NHS Hall of Famer who also had sisters who played at Nottingham. Like Kelly, she has seen Kirkpatrick as a student and a teacher.
“As a past athlete and current coach, I have personally received his support and greatly appreciate it,” Foley said. “I have witnessed the smiles Wes brings to the Nottingham family through encouraging words and constant support.”
Dee Taylor has been at Nottingham most of her adult life, first as a coach and now as athletic director. She knows about Kirkpatrick as well as anyone.
“Wes Kirkpatrick has been a mainstay at Nottingham since the 1980s,” Taylor said. “In that time he has become the Northstars’ most recognizable and adored ‘fan’ as well as photographer of the athletic teams. Wes has helped establish the athletic booster club, the Northstar Athletic Hall of Fame, and has solidified the Nottingham athletic community.”
It was a community that was just getting started in 1982, when Kirkpatrick’s son Mike was a freshman in a school that had just converted from a junior high to a high school. By that time, Kirkpatrick had come to call Mercer County his home after seeing half the country.
Born in Syracuse, N.Y., Kirkpatrick moved to Winter Haven, Fla., by way of Arizona, at age 9. He loved sports but could not play due to asthma. The high school football coach took him under his wing and made him the manager for the football and track and field teams.
When Kirkpatrick went to the University of Florida, that same coach recommended him to the Gators head football coach, and Kirkpatrick earned four varsity letters and got some scholarship money as the team manager.
“That was an awesome experience,” said Kirkpatrick, whose love for the Northstars may be surpassed only by his love for the Gators.
Kirkpatrick then went to work for Carnation dairy products, didn’t like it, got a master’s degree in business and food distribution from the University of Southern California and went on to work for Scott Paper and then Johnson and Johnson while living in Alabama, Georgia and Texas.
He was transferred to East Windsor by Johnson and Johnson in 1973 and has been in Mercer County ever since. When Mike started playing in a football program that would suffer long and harsh growing pains, Kirkpatrick was there with his Kodak Brownie Hawkey camera (now found at any vintage store).
“I was one happy camper when I got that for Christmas,” Kirkpatrick said. “I just liked art and photography, it was something I could do. I was an amateur but I just liked it. I like art, and I like sports, and photography seemed to be the best way I could express myself at art.”
He shot Mike in football, baseball and track before he graduated in 1986, and shot daughter Kristine, a soccer player and MVP swimmer, until she graduated in ’87. But his lens wasn’t just trained on them. He shot their friends and teammates as well, providing pictures for every family to see.
By the mid 1980s, his former wife was heavily involved in the booster club and encouraged Kirkpatrick to turn his photos into slide presentations to be shown at the club dinner. He had since graduated to a Nikon SLR camera to help with the process.
“I had experience with J and J doing that sort of thing,” Kirkpatrick said. “I did a 20 to 30 minute slide show with two projectors. Real old fashioned stuff. It was a big hit and really got me motivated.
“I had a good friend, Paul Bree, who I give a lot of credit to. He was a video specialist from Princeton, and I probably would have gotten out of it a long time ago if he hadn’t helped me with that.”
After his children graduated, Kirkpatrick had become so friendly with the athletes and many of their parents, he was not about to give up his spot on the sidelines. Once he retired from J and J in 1993—having been to all 50 states by that time—he became even more of a fixture.
“I stayed for three reasons,” he said. “I began to get to know the kids and their parents, and the Booster Club thing was a really big hit. There was no internet, so they weren’t getting that kind of entertainment in those days. There were very little pictures.
“I also appreciate the value of sports and what it teaches. And coaches like Peggy Howell and Jon Adams were really big supporters. That first state championship team (on which Howell was an assistant) got me all jacked up. That was when I started really getting into it.
“I just got more deeply involved with the people. They showed me a lot of appreciation and respect, I figured ‘Why not continue doing this?’ I’ve been everywhere, now it’s pretty much my (six) grandchildren (in Maryland and New York) and Nottingham.”
By the time he retired, a young teacher/football coach had been transferred to Nottingham from Steinert, and was greeted warmly by Kirkpatrick.
“Wes was the first person I met when I came to Nottingham,” Adams said. “I was a young, wet-behind-the-ears kid who was in over his head. He believed in me and inspired me to become the coach I am today.
“Since then we have attended dozens of clinics over the years. I will never forget the trips to the University of Florida, Notre Dame—where they took his camera—Alabama, LSU.”
As the ’90s rolled into the 21st century, Kirkpatrick was still there and his star was shining brighter each year. In a move that Kirkpatrick called “really overwhelming,” the softball parents wanted to have the field named after him, but they settled for the “Wes Kirkpatrick Dugout” which is the Northstars’ home dugout.
He also has two athletic awards named after him. The Booster Club gives a West Kirkpatrick Scholarship Award, and Adams gives a football volunteer the Wes Award for service to the team.
He began to be known to more folks than just Nottingham when his work appeared in the media. Now, that special brand of Wes is being seen by more people than ever before.
“I get a thrill out of it, I send the links to my kids and other people,” he said. “It’s just my effort to promote the school. I like to promote Nottingham, it’s another thing I like to do. A lot of good things that go on inside the walls of that school that people need to know about.”
“I feel the same way about Hamilton and Steinert,” Kirkpatrick said. “I have a love and respect for all those guys.
“But,” he added with a laugh, “game day is a different deal. I’m friends with (Hamilton’s) Tom Hoglen and (Steinert’s) Dan Caruso and (former Steinert coach) Steve Simek, but I tell him ‘I hated you, Simek.’ One of the happiest days of my life was the first time we beat Steinert.”
The beauty of Kirkpatrick is that the other schools feel the same way. Some don’t know him at all, but they have seen him.
“Wes is Nottingham’s biggest fan,” said principal Mike Giambelluca, another former NHS athlete. “Over the years people have come and gone, but Wes has been around from the beginning.
“He has a real genuine love for Nottingham athletics. Wes has the same passion today as he did 30 years ago and he has evolved with technology.”
Indeed, he transitioned into the digital age of photography by purchasing an Olympus camera. He is also a videographer now, having handed over the photo duties on football game day to Mary Malone and Pat Ingra.
“They’re doing 95 percent of the pictures,” Kirkpatrick said. “Mary stepped up in a big way, too. She’s very dependable, she’s good at what she does. She’s probably the next Wes in line. Actually I report to her now, when it comes to football.”
Perhaps. But as for being the next Wes, that’s impossible.
There’s only one Wes Kirkpatrick.
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