Shawn Rodgers’ journey to creating RareFootage Sports brought him back to Philly hoops

A trip to Best Buy became a whole lot more for Shawn Rodgers.

It was two years ago that Rodgers and his wife, Egypt, went shopping for a television for Egypt’s nail studio in Chester. Browsing in the store, she picked up a digital camera, snapped a photo of her husband, and showed him.

“I was like, ‘Dang, this looks good,’ so we bought the camera,” Rodgers said. “And I’ve been shooting ever since.”

Little did Rodgers know that his spur-of-the-moment purchase would end up paving the way for what has become his calling and making an impact on high school basketball players across the area.

For the last two years, you may have seen Rodgers in the bleachers at a game, camera at chest height with his head down, looking at the screen as he pans around the gym.

Most people who encounter Rodgers don’t know his name, just his YouTube channel and website, RareFootage Sports.

They call him “Rare,” a moniker he’s more than fine with. It’s a name, he said, that came from a sneaker resale business he had kicked around, and when he pivoted to video, it stuck.

His videos have gained plenty of traction on social media, which features 30- to 60-second highlight clips of the standout player from a game.

“His work ethic is off the charts right now,” said Imhotep Charter boys’ basketball coach Andre Noble.

But it wasn’t always that way.

Born in the West Oak Lane section, Rodgers grew up in a basketball household. His older brother, Scott, played at Central High and Drexel (2005-09), and younger brother, Chase, starred at Martin Luther King.

Shawn picked up the game early, playing at Simons Recreation Center with Scott.

His mother, Ruth, raised her three boys as a single parent. She worked a minimum-wage job while pursuing a bachelor’s degree at La Salle, then went to a year of graduate school.

“My religion teacher told me, ‘You have three sons. Statistics show that your kids will end up in jail or dead,’” Ruth said. “I said, ‘I refuse to lose one of my children.’ I had to work hard with Shawn, but it was worth it.”

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Rodgers was a solid student in elementary and middle school, although didn’t quite have the grades to follow his older brother to Central, an elite Philadelphia magnet high school. Shawn ended up attending Martin Luther King, where he fell in with the wrong crowd.

“It was a rough stop,” he said. “I was a victim [of] my environment, which led me to get into a bit of trouble. Before then I used to work hard; I just got caught up.”

In February 2004, Rodgers said he spent some time at a residential rehabilitation and educational facility for teenage boys at the now-closed St. Gabriel’s Hall in Lower Providence. In 2005, he enrolled as a sophomore at Imhotep Charter, where Andre Noble was building the program to what has become arguably Pennsylvania’s premier hoops powerhouse.

He played under Noble for two seasons. During his fifth year, Rodgers was ineligible to play for the Panthers but was listed as “team videographer.” He said he never actually fulfilled his duties.

“I wasn’t really good, I’m not going to lie,” Rodgers said. “I didn’t work as hard as I should, but I got lucky.”

He improved enough over the course of two seasons at Imhotep to gain interest from Division II schools.

Rodgers had a brief stint at East Stroudsburg, then ended up at Division III Thomas College in Maine for the 2008-09 season. He averaged double figures and won rookie of the year in his conference, then finished his playing career at Lincoln University in 2012.

From that point on, it was a series of jobs and business ideas: mowing grass, working for a friend’s cleaning business. He also attempted to start a flower shop in Chester. Basketball was always in the back of his mind, but he wasn’t involved with the game for the better part of a decade.

“I would go to games as a casual fan,” Rodgers said. “A lot of my friends’ kids played — or it would be kids that [aren’t] getting recognized or seen like they should. I said, ‘Instead of us having these barbershop talks or everybody complaining, let me see if I can [fill] that void.’

“I started off with taking pictures of the players and putting them [online]. ... Eventually I started doing video. I would do three games a day — one at 3:15 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 7 p.m., five days a week — then I would just put the kids out there. Kids would tell me who’s going on [college] visits and tell me that schools are using the videos to recruit the kids, and that gave me more motivation.

“I realized I wanted to be a SportsCenter, the house of highlights for recruiting high school kids.”

In 2022, Rodgers officially launched RareFootage, and just a couple of years into his video journey, he has created an established brand within the region.

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Rodgers can be seen in gyms around the area, usually tucked into the corner of the bleachers, six or eight rows up. He has become known for his highlight tapes. Rodgers often pops over to his laptop between games to get clips out. They’re not long or fancy, no overlaid music or graphics, just the highlights.

“When I’m doing a 10-game tournament, I want to get it first so the world can see it first,” he said. “I’ll delete [clips] as the game’s going on, and once the game’s over, I’ll see who’s the player of the game, then it’ll take me seven to 10 minutes, and I just get it out there.”

Rodgers’ coverage includes boys’ and girls’ basketball.

“I was never into girls’ basketball until the summer when I first started and I went to SheElite in the summertime,” he said, referring to the basketball league. “When I saw [Penn Charter’s] Ryan Carter make a play, I didn’t know girls could play like that, have game like that. I would never watch girls’ basketball, so when I saw her make a move and saw how skilled the girls are, I fell in love with the girls’ game.”

Rodgers plans to host a couple of offseason high school basketball showcases this summer. Most of his coverage is unpaid, just networking to keep expanding his brand.

He said the hope is to build a national platform, although he added there’s “no end goal” in mind. He just wants to keep RareFootage going for as long as he can.

“When I put my mind on things, I don’t really have a Plan B, it’s got to work,” he said. “That’s really how I look at life, everything I put my mind to, it’s Plan A or nothing. There’s no Plan B.”

This story was produced as part of a partnership between The Inquirer and City of Basketball Love, a nonprofit news organization that covers high school and college basketball in the Philadelphia area while also helping mentor the next generation of sportswriters. This collaboration will help boost coverage of the city’s vibrant amateur basketball scene, from the high school ranks up through the Big 5 and beyond.