As technology has evolved over the past decade, streaming video has become more mainstream. Many people stream movies and television shows through services such as Netflix and Hulu, dramatically changing the way media is consumed.
That shift has carried over into high school sporting events. Sultan High School’s TurkPride.tv is part of the change. Last school year, the Turks webcast 101 events — roughly 80 percent of which were sporting events — on their largely self-funded web channel.
It’s not just about quantity for TurkPride.tv advisor Dave Moon, the school district’s technology director, it’s also about quality. Sultan recently was named a “Select School” by the National Federation of State High School Associations, the national governing body of prep sports. Sultan was one of 110 schools recognized for their broadcasts from more than 1,600 schools. Of those 110 schools, the average school produced an average of 56 events and covered five sports.
“It took us a long while to get to where we’re at,” Moon said. “Now, we put together a really good production.”
The Turks began webcasting live sporting events three years ago and have come a long way since. The video feeds started with no announcer, but that has changed thanks to Bryon Atkinson, a community member who became the voice of TurkPride.tv.
“The (students) would be at the basketball game and they would be filming the game and changing the score, but they didn’t really understand that was a big shot or those kinds of things,” Atkinson said. “By adding that play-by-play and that energy in there, it started taking off. It started becoming that place where the kids wanted to be and they wanted to be a part of it.”
Atkinson started as the voice of the Turks’ wrestling team, but has since gone on to call several other sports.
With Atkinson on board, students started getting interested in announcing. TechClub president Crystal Nambo, the student leader for TurkPride.tv, started with no on-air experience, but it since has become one of her favorite things.
“My first time I was announcing, I was so scared,” she said. “I didn’t know anything about the sport and the sport was baseball. I was terrified because it was my first time announcing. Our announcer, Bryon Atkinson, was saying, ‘Don’t worry about it. Just ask questions and follow along with me.’ It started getting more comfortable along the way and it was pretty fun.”
While announcing is one of the more glamorous jobs, cameraman is one Nambo and TechClub vice president Daniel Whitcomb aren’t as passionate about.
“Personally, cameraman is the worst job,” Whitcomb said. “It gets super-old. If you do like 20 events and you’re the cameraman for all of them, you don’t want to do it anymore.”
“When you’re at the camera, you’re just looking at a little screen,” Nambo added. “It kind of gets a little exhausting and you get a little bug-eyed.”
Nambo has been around since the inception of TurkPride.tv and the growth she has seen over the past four years is a source of pride.
“I can see how much we’ve developed,” she said. “TurkPride.tv started when I was a freshman and, at first, our technology wasn’t so great. Everything kind of crashed and some things didn’t work out. It was a rough start. Seeing from my freshman year until now, it’s kind of shocking and I kind of like seeing how much we’ve improved and how much technology has changed with the streams.”
Sultan has managed its success with remedial equipment, at best. Currently, the club relies on its own funds — generated through fund-raisers and sponsorships — to make upgrades, and Moon has even shelled out some of his own money when necessary.
“We’re doing everything with junk,” Moon said. “The video mixer I bought at a yard sale for 100 bucks. We’re using consumer-grade cameras. We’re streaming in standard def. We’re really faking it in a lot of places.”
But that hasn’t stopped Moon and his students from excelling. In addition to being named a Select School by the national federation, TurkPride.tv was a finalist for highlight of the year at the federation’s first annual Network Broadcast Academy Awards. The highlight was from a girls basketball game last season that featured then freshman Lily Morgan making a 3-pointer as time expired in regulation to send a game against Lakewood into overtime.
Moon said he hopes the stability and success of the program will generate more income.
“Advertising has always taken a back seat to getting the program up and running,” Moon said. “This is the first year where I feel like I have a momentum going where we are going to be able to concentrate on some advertising.
“I think another year or two under our belts when we get it rolling and we get our reputation going a little bit better, then I think we can start reaching our hand out to the community a little bit more.”
Moon has dedicated a lot of his personal time over the past four years to getting TurkPride.tv up and running. His hope is that some of the students involved might find their calling.
“I’m hoping that I’m going to see this reciprocated down the line,” Moon said. “I’m going to see these kids come back to me and go into some type of broadcasting or journalism.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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