New Wichita-based Web site will show local game footage

ORIGINALLY WRITTEN ANDREW OTTOSON
Perhaps ever since the day Aladdin saw a genie emerge from his fabled golden lamp, innovative people have sought ways to capture magical moments and show them to their friends.

Now, in the age of broadband Internet and high school athletics, a Kansas company has figured out how to show off the extraordinary things that happen on fields and in gyms around the country.

And Hillsboro High School is among the first to get involved.

“The Web site (hssportstv.net) went public on June 10, 2006, and we already have every high school in the country in our database…it would take us a matter of five minutes to make a school active so they could start uploading their games,” said R.J. Nusz.

Nusz and Tabor College graduate and former Hillsboro Recreation director Rick Cox are co-founders of High School Sports TV, a Wichita-based company that is working to provide free video coverage of high school athletics to interested people all over the United States.

“Our service provides a way for the kid, the parents, the distant relatives, the grandparents, the siblings, the alumni that don’t have a way to stay in touch with the school, but still want to be a part of it and support it,” Nusz said.

But part of what makes HS Sports TV truly distinctive is its ability to connect people with ‘magical’ events in ways that were unthinkable before the dawn of the Information Age.

Nusz cited the example of autistic teenager Jason McElwain, a manager on a New York high school basketball team who entered one game in 2005.

McElwain gained fame when highlight reel footage of his 20-points-in-4-minutes outburst was aired to a national television audience.

But Nusz also cited an example that received much less attention from sports media nationwide:

“Not many people know that in Minneapolis last year, a kid scored something like 26 points in two minutes…those are the kind of magic moments we’re hoping our Web site will be able to capture.”

The co-founders are working to match their vision with a novel approach to sports broadcasting.

High school athletics have been traditionally aired for radio and television, but HS Sports TV will bring the games into living rooms via Internet.

“This is a new business,” Cox said. “This is something that has never been done before. We were originally going to go with a subscription base to sell-you buy a subscription and you can watch the games.

“We decided to open this up to everybody-if they have high-speed Internet, they just log on and there it is-and it’s free.”

In addition to the game video it makes available to the public, the HS Sports TV service will, with a little help, provide more detailed information as well.

“We’re working to find a student at each school to train to do the uploading and the maintenance of the school’s content,” Nusz said.

Cox said that a student contracted with by HS Sports TV films the game and uploads it, along with schedules and rosters and personal player cards.

“Rosters have the jersey number, name, height, weight, year they are in school, and their position.”

In addition to a photo, “the player cards can be a little more in depth, because they can actually add any accomplishments that they’ve had during the past year-if they were all-league or all-state or anything like that,” Cox said.

Heinrichs noted that HHS students sign an agreement to allow public domain information to be posted.

“It’s the same agreement as we have for releasing information to the local newspapers, and the information on the page is common knowledge, the kind of information that is already being published.”

“We really raked over (the student privacy issue) pretty hard,” Heinrichs said. “We want to make sure that we’re doing this right.”

HS Sports TV is designed to give each school the greatest possible degree of control over what goes on their Web site.

“By keeping the service free,” Nusz said, “we’re able to give the schools more control.

“But in order for the school to be involved, we have to pay the bills…so we’re looking for some key advertisers in each community to support the service.”

Since the HHS page on the Web site became active, it has rapidly built an extensive following.

“We had over 2,000 hits last week, so there are a lot of people taking a look at it,” HHS assistant principal and director of athletics Max Heinrichs said.

The co-founders anticipate rapid growth as word continues to spread.

Cox hopes that “HS Sports TV is going to be a nationwide thing that will affect every state and probably every high school.”

And Cox’s assessment of the idea’s potential may not be an exaggeration.

Word has already spread among the coaches of the MCAA, and early indications are that HS Sports TV is poised for rapid growth.

“The league is very interested in getting involved,” Heinrichs said. “We’ll be trading digital videos next year, and doing it through HS Sports TV should save our coaches some time and save us some money.

“I think the whole league will be on it for the beginning of next year,” he added.

“We’re going to get together to adopt some guidelines to protect our league from schools who are trying to get film (to prepare for) our teams in the post-season.”

Heinrichs said that HHS has been using the service since “right after our last football game.”

The timing of the decision to start using the service reflects the school’s concern about whether posting game footage on the Internet could give the team a disadvantage against its competition.

Nusz pointed out that the possibility of other schools using their Web site to gain a scouting advantage is a concern that many potential clients have expressed.

“The concern about scouting is important,” he said. “But most basketball coaches have realized that there aren’t other coaches out there scouring HS Sports TV to find out that one kid is going to shoot the ball every time.

“Football is a little different, because coaches spend more time breaking down game film.”

But Nusz was also quick to point out that HS Sports TV gives schools control over all of the site’s content.

“Southeast of Saline was on board and they just put all their games up,” he said. “Others have come on with the intention of putting up one game up at a time.

“The school maintains all of that control: If they want one week up at a time, or if they always want to put up their game one week behind, they can do that,” he added. “I think what it really boils down to is that if a coach really wants to get footage of a team and HS Sports TV didn’t exist, they’d still find a way.”

It may not be intended to help teams scout each other, but the Web site is versatile-Cox described it as “multi-faceted.”

“Athletes want to watch the game afterward,” he said. “So do family, friends and relatives who couldn’t attend the game-like they live out of state or out of the country-and it can help college coaches for recruiting purposes.”

The Trojans saw the advantages the service could provide, and moved quickly.

Heinrichs said that both Cox and secretary of communications Pati Funk were important links in the chain of communication early on in the process.

“We’re always interested in using the latest technology to enhance what we already have, so we jumped on board,” Heinrichs said.

Now the school is “working backwards to get all of (the 2006 football season) games on…and we’ll put volleyball games on.

“We’re working to get stats and find people to make highlight films, just as a service to our community and those people who are interested in Hillsboro High School athletics.

“Now we’re fine-tuning the way we put basketball games on-usually the next day in the morning.”

Basketball in the morning sounds like something a dedicated sports fan would wish for, but nobody needed a genie to make it happen, after all.

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