By Ron Kantowski

Published Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009 | 1:09 p.m.

Updated Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009 | 1:16 p.m.

Justin M. Bowen

Rene Rougeau looks at the official in disgust as he is called for a technical foul Saturday as UNLV took on the New Mexico Lobos Saturday in Albuquerque New Mexico at the Pit. The Lobos defeated the Rebels 73-69 in overtime; it was the second straight game UNLV has lost in overtime.

NOW:

In my 35 years of writing about sports for newspapers, the one thing I've learned about this business is that if we don't pat ourselves on the back every now and then, nobody else will.

That's why I'd like to take this opportunity to pat Justin Bowen, who shoots Rebel basketball games for lasvegassun.com, on the back.

You know by now that one of the key plays in the Rebels' 73-69 overtime loss at New Mexico on Saturday night was when Rene Rougeau was whistled for a questionable rebounding foul and then was nailed with a technical -- his fifth personal -- for complaining about it with 4:28 to go.

"Kruger: Disappointed shrug," I scribbled in my notebook. The look on the face of the Rebels' coach told the story, but how to put it into words?

I didn't have to. Justin's picture captured the defining moment of the game. You see it here.

Rougeau, standing there, hands on hips ... Kruger's disappointed shrug ... The Pit fans going crazy in the background.

In a lot of ways, Justin's job, like mine, has been made less relevant in the video age of covering live sports.

This became even more clear when I saw his photo and had to resist the temptation to yell "BOO-YAH!"

THEN:

One of the good things about the advancements in sports photography is that when somebody like Woodie Held gets traded from the Indians to the Senators for a player to be named later and a pouch of Red Man, they don't have to block out the logo on his cap with a black smudge. They just Photoshop on the new logo.

But my theory is that the Topps company figured out a workaround before Photoshop was invented. Guys that got traded a lot were simply photographed without their caps.

I guarantee that if you were born in the 1950s and still have a shoebox of baseball cards in the spare-bedroom closet you will find one of Woodie Held without his cap before you get to the first checklist.