Trace Browning is a freelance camera operator from Lodi, Wisconsin, who grew up the way most Wisconsinites do: cheering for the Packers, Brewers, Badgers, and Bucks.
While most of us grow up dreaming of making tackles on Lambeau Field or smashing home runs at Miller Park (we will never stop calling it Miller Park), Trace took a different path to the 50-yard line. Rather than holding a football, he holds a camera while sprinting up and down the field and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“It’s absolutely surreal to me, I mean to this day … eleven seasons in,” Trace said.
Trace is incredibly grateful to be doing what he loves: working a handheld camera for UW-Madison, Marquette, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Milwaukee Bucks. Spending his work days courtside, on the field, or in the stands, Trace is a lifelong fan who found a way to turn his passion for Wisconsin sports into his full-time job.
Trace first worked a handheld camera at a Badger football game as a “145lb 19-year-old” at Camp Randall during the 2013-14 college football season. After the camera operator ahead of him was injured, he found out he would be working handheld, which entails recording the coin toss and player intros on the 50-yard line, less than 24 hours before kickoff. Needless to say, despite battling nerves and the weight of his cam, Trace made his mark and found what would eventually become his career.
Today, Trace works handheld cams for all of the teams I’ve previously mentioned and continues working for Wisconsin Athletics teaching video production students the ins and outs of working a camera at a sporting event. Trace tells his students to remain coachable and take an athlete’s mentality into each game.
“That’s been my approach [always trying to improve]. I’ve always thought that the worst thing you can do is become complacent and just go ‘oh well, I made it’,” Trace said. “I’m just going to do what I need to do to get by. I’m always under the impression that there is some area that I need to improve in.”
Trace’s hunger for improvement, work ethic and dedication to Wisconsin sports have allowed him to have a better-than-front-row seat to more than a couple incredible moments, including playoff basketball games and walk-off home runs alike.
I asked Trace about his most memorable sporting event working a camera and he told me the story of working his handheld during a Garrett Mitchell walk-off home run. Trace was on the field and recorded Mitchell rounding third base before jumping into the arms of his teammates.
“I had never had a walk-off home run before, and it was the one space missing on my TV bingo card,” Trace said.
Describing meeting with his director prior to the game, Trace talked about being prepared for a walk-off just in case and, as it has before, his preparation paid off.
“It just all worked out perfectly. Getting down there [on the field] in time…bottom of the 9th, tie game,” Trace said.
Trace waited for the pitch from the umpire’s well, “a little tunnel just to the home plate side of the visitor’s dugout.” From there he described Mitchell’s hit as a “no doubter” as soon as he heard the crack of the bat before running onto the field to get his shot.
“Mitchell hits a walk off…one of those where you knew it was gone as soon as it left the bat. I’m running out there, I couldn’t even tell you what the director’s call was [due to crowd noise that overpowered his director in his headset],” Trace said. “I’m like, ‘oh my god, this is awesome’ as the director cuts around to other cameras. I will never forget the excitement in his [the director] voice when he gets to my camera.”
As Mitchell comes around third base, Trace hears the director take his shot, meaning that the shot from Trace’s camera is now live on TV/stream.
“It was everything we talked about hours before. I pick Mitchell up and pan with him [on his way toward home plate]. I turn and see all the guys waiting at home plate, ready to engulf him and they grab him up. I get right in there and, you know, they’re tearing his jersey, Gatorade showers come flying…it was everything I wanted that moment to be,” Trace said.
Moments like these are why Trace loves doing what he does, and he certainly doesn’t take them for granted.
“I’m usually standing around the 50-yard line [during pregame of Badger football games] waiting for the coin toss. It’s all still so surreal to me and, you know, it goes back to being a fan my whole life…I’ve always tried to take a full 360 rotation and just take it all in,” Trace said.
Taking it all in, whether it’s through the lens or his own eyes, is something Trace always remembers to do. As a lifelong fan myself, I’m happy to know the man behind the camera is as grateful to be there as the rest of us are to watch his shots.
To watch Trace’s shot of the Garrett Mitchell walk-off home run, click here. Trace’s camera was used from 0:17-0:25.