‘Passion for kids’: Wichita photographer on life support after sideline collision at game

A well-known Wichita sports photographer is on life support after an inadvertent collision with players on the sidelines of a high school football game.

Linda Gregory, a longtime photographer for the Wichita Northwest High School football team, was taking pictures on the sidelines of a junior varsity football game on Monday night when two players still engaged in a block continued just past out of bounds and knocked her over. She fell backward and hit her head on the concrete apron of the track at Bishop Carroll High School.

She was transported to a hospital on Monday evening after the accident and eventually was placed on life support. The Wichita Northwest Grizzly Football Facebook page has relayed updates from her husband, Mel Gregory, including that Linda will be transported to Kansas City for organ donation plans.

Northwest football coach Steve Martin told The Eagle the team will wear “LG” helmet stickers for the remainder of the season, starting with Friday’s game at Heights.

“Linda was an amazing person who breathed life into our students here at Northwest,” Martin said in a statement to The Eagle. “She would go out of her way to make each kid feel important in her own unique way. Her passion for kids was amazing, but it went deeper than taking pictures for Linda and Mel. They were a part of our football team and always will be. They are family! She was a mentor and friend to some of our boys, past and present, and they are hurting right now.

“The loss is a painful one for our team and my family, but we can only hope to learn from this tragic event. Linda and Mel have planted themselves into our Northwest community and we will never forget Linda! She left this world doing what she loved to do and that was being around people and expressing herself with pictures! We will be keeping her spirit alive in our program and will be wearing LG stickers on our helmets to always remind us of our number one fan.”

Gregory and her husband shared a passion for photography and sports, which made them regulars at sporting events all around Wichita.

Their involvement with Northwest sports started because of their friendship with the family of former Eagle journalist Joanna Chadwick and her husband, Bryan. When Bryan accepted the job as boys basketball coach at Northwest in 2014, Mel and Linda began shooting pictures of Northwest sporting events. When Bryan left the school in 2018, the husband-and-wife duo continued showing up every week to Grizzly games.

“Linda is the third grandmother to my sons and that is something I’ll never, ever be able to repay her for,” Joanna Chadwick said. “She loves Bryan and my children and my family and to lose that is what hurts the most.

“But what is so amazing about Linda is that as much as she loved my family and as much as we loved her, it was that same way with so many other people. She was that person for so many other people and she was always more than happy to give you advice on a topic or help you out of a jam.”

Linda’s impact on the Northwest community was evident by the messages of love and support on social media once people heard about the accident.

Former Northwest football star Breece Hall, now a running back in the NFL for the New York Jets, posted on Facebook after hearing the news on Tuesday.

“We need prayers!!!” Hall wrote. “These are the most genuine, polite, kind, giving, whole hearted people. Prayers out to you and your wonderful wife, Mel Gregory.”

Linda Gregory also operated her own photography business as a master photographer, taking pictures ranging from action and sports to head shots to business branding to premium images of aircrafts, automobiles and homes.

She was always willing to give advice to student photographers she would meet on the sidelines of high school games.

“No matter who you were, whether you were the opera star, whether you were the district attorney, whether you were the 7-year-old ball boy, the daughter of the coach, whoever you were, she was interested,” Joanna Chadwick said. “Linda and Mel loved to travel and they had so many experiences together and she was always looking to gain more. She just wanted to know more about people.”

Another passion project for the Gregorys was taking pictures for League 42, a popular youth baseball league.

“Linda, and her husband, Mel, were on the ground floor of League 42,” League 42 founder Bob Lutz said in a statement to The Eagle. “They provided a visual history of our league from our very early days in the summer and fall of 2013. Linda was a workhorse for League 42, not only taking thousands upon thousands of photographs of our kids at play, but also serving for a time on our board of directors and more recently on our education and building committees. She took much pride in League 42 and was instrumental in what has been built.”