Photos don’t just sit in Sandra Fike’s phone. In fact, a phone isn’t the way she traditionally captures good memories. She uses… now wait for it… a 35mm camera. Wow. Old school, right? 

Now hold on. Fike isn’t in the dark room ages. She uses a 35mm digital camera. Yes, she has a camera on phone too. She uses it too. But when she’s serving as the team mom photographer for her son – Coach Scott Fike and his Staunton River High School wrestling team – she brings more than a phone to the mats. She brings a camera that can take more crisp close-ups and can snap faster than a phone can. Sometimes it’s needed when you’re covering wrestlers who can pin down their opponents in the blink of an eye. We’re not talking about the little “i” in a phone. Sandra is someone who has a real eye for photography. 

“I absolutely love doing photography and making memories in my pictures that otherwise would be forgotten,” said Fike. “My late father-in-law got me started in it when he would take his camera on our vacations. I ended up purchasing my own, and I never put it down.” 

Fike said she started taking pictures of her family and grandkids during their sports playing days. 

“All of my grandkids play sports, and I take as many as I can with them in baseball, soccer and gymnastics,” said Fike. “I was once in those shoes as a parent of a child playing sports. I wanted to see the action and I wanted pictures also.”

For the past few Staunton River wrestling seasons, Fike has gone on the road – literally – to cover the high school’s wrestling team. On her dime, she travels to meets throughout Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware – wherever the wrestling team goes – to catch the still moments of the kid competitors giving their best on the mats. Her kid’s days on the mats are long gone – he’s now on the sideline. Fike still occasionally snaps some shots of Coach Fike in coaching action. It’s the proud mom in her that she is and will always be. But these days, she’s letting her photography serve a different purpose – to be the team mom photographer for parents and grandparents so they can focus on the live experience of their children at play. “It’s very humbling when the parents, and wrestlers too, come up to me later and say how thankful they are to have these pictures,” said Fike. She’s doing her part to preserve the memories for others to have, to hold in their hands in newspaper articles and on those new-fangled phones, both for the young and the always young at heart. 

Just how did this leap to team mom photographer evolve into what Fike does today? “I started taking wrestling pictures when Scott was in high school and college,” said Fike. “When he graduated from college and started coaching, I said to him, ‘I’m here anyway.” And Coach Fike put her in, just like a good son whose been taught to be a team player does. 

“The boys love seeing their pictures in the newspaper,” said Fike. “To know that it gives them some great exposure is such a plus! Wrestling families are FAMILY. I’ve made so many relationships because of my photography and the time I spend with them.” 

Fike and her husband, Kevin, love traveling to the far away tournaments. “We love spending time watching Scott do his thing!,” It’s not just a wrestling thing at Staunton River. Many of the school’s coaches’ parents do the same to support their children who now coach pass on the character instilled into them to young men and women – the leaders of tomorrow.

“I also take some baseball pictures and share them when I can,” said Fike. “My grandson has just started school ball, so getting these photos for him just makes him smile.” 

Your time and efforts make others smile too, Mrs. Fike. You can count on it, whether it’s on the mat, on court or on the field. You bring new meaning to the saying that ‘pictures are worth a thousand words.’ Yours are worth thousands of memories of experiences deserving to last a lifetime in the hands of others who cherish them, and you.