It was 2017 when the emails started pouring in. Annabel Banks - senior at Belmont High School at the time - realized for the first time that the sport she loved could propel her to new heights, and a collegiate career at some of the best academically ranked schools in the nation. Approaching her very last season playing hockey with her varsity team, she eagerly awaited the possibility of choosing the best fit for her, where she could continue to lace up her skates in a new setting, with interest from schools like Trinity College, Williams College, and SUNY Buffalo. However, what Banks was not prepared for was the jarring reality that her career was going to be cut short in just a few months, and the opportunities that seemed to await would disappear as well.
“I'm not going to tell you that you can never play contact sports again, but you should really seriously consider [it]”. Banks sat in the muted patient room in awe as her concussion specialist stated these words to her. This was her fifth concussion, her fifth one in five years.
In the frigid month of February 2018, she realized that this last concussion - caused by a typical in-season game - may have been her breaking point. Her hard work felt like it was slowly slipping through her fingers.
“I missed my senior night,” Banks reflected. She tried completing the protocol to get her back on the ice but it would result in her feeling even worse than before. The remainder of her hockey season that year she was left injured, inactive from most team activities to recover. “I remember after team dinner, I came home [and] I was just having a terrible headache, and I could hear my team outside TP-ing my house. I wanted to get up and look out the window, but I was in bed [because] my head was on fire”
After the realization that her hockey career would come to a halt, Banks stared at the very same emails that she received just a few months prior. Their optimistic tone read more somberly, as she shared with her recruiters that playing at their schools was no longer an option. “I don't know how to describe it,” Banks said. “It was terrible [and] heartbreaking”.
Annabel Banks (in white) on her Belmont High School varsity hockey team, in Belmont, Massachusetts
For graduation that year, Banks received a gift that would change the course of her collegiate career. In fact, the gift had nothing to do with hockey. It was her very first camera. “I started wanting to do photography at some point late in high school. I still have the camera and I still use it [today] with different accessories”.
After graduation, she began to combine her passion for sports with this newfound hobby at a summer camp she worked for, capturing the moments of her campers in action. “It was a pretty good introduction into the sports photography world because I [had] never taken a class or anything to do with photography. I was learning as I went. The guy who was the director of the media team [at camp], was a photographer by training so he taught me a lot - you know, what all the buttons do and [what] all of the words on the camera meant. Then I just kind of learned by doing”.
By the time she got to Marist College, Banks became involved in athletics in a new way, not on the ice but behind the camera. Starting her sophomore year, Banks began volunteering with the athletic department covering games all year round starting with the Eddie Coombs fall-ball lacrosse tournament hosted on campus, “I took pictures for those games, I did one men's basketball game, and then I did a little bit of lacrosse that spring [but] then COVID happened”.
However, during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic was when Bank’s biggest photography opportunity came yet, working for the Marist Football team. “I didn’t end up starting with them until the fall of junior year” Banks mentioned, “That was when they were doing pretty informal practices, [but] I have been with them since then.” Her time with the squad allowed her to be a part of the team in a brand new way, “They’re super excited to see me and they'll see me on campus and say hi, and, one of them reached out to do senior pictures. As much as I miss being on a team myself, being on this side, and being a part of the team in a different way is really cool. They’re super appreciative and it’s fun to be a part of”.
This past winter in addition to working with the football team, Banks started working with both men’s and women’s basketball teams, as well as shooting for lacrosse, baseball, and softball games for the spring season of 2022. As her graduation from Marist approaches, Banks is looking forward to new opportunities that her new hobby will bring her. “Hopefully I can end up doing a little bit of [photography] in the professional world of sports” Banks said, “As a Boston Area person and a hockey person, I've loved the Bruins since I was little, so working with them would be super cool - or just in general, like NHL, NBA”.
However, for Banks, her love for athletics hasn’t gone away. “It’s a weird kind of nostalgia almost. I did freelance work for the Manhattan team [for] the MAAC men’s lacrosse championships, and they ended up winning so getting to shoot that was really cool. But I missed the feeling of winning with the team. It’s really fun to experience this side of things and have a different kind of outlook, but at the same time I definitely really miss it”. However, although the future remains untold for Banks, she knows her camera will still be with her for her next journey.
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