Sports Illustrated - USA (2021-12)

SCORECARD

SI’S DIRECTOR

of photography,

Marguerite Schropp

Lucarelli, handled her

first preview cover

shoot in 1997, when

she was the NBA

photo editor, and the

issue theme was the NBA’s underground.

After an editor’s off hand, semiserious

suggestion to photograph a player

coming out of a manhole got traction,

she found herself planning a shoot on

a set (designed by Bradley Garlock)

in suburban Detroit with Pistons star

Grant Hill in a noir-ish trench coat. (The

manhole cover was not real, but the

weeds by the light pole were.) Hill was

game, and the result was an iconic debut

cover. “We haven’t done anything like it

since,” Schropp Lucarelli says. “Yet.”

22 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED | SI.COM

HOLE

TRUTH

PHOTOGRAPHS BY

RICHARD CORMAN

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