Throughout the past few weeks, several changes have taken place within our athletic department: first, the installation of a brand new athletics website, and secondly, a new, conference-wide sports broadcasting service.

In early November, William Jewell College signed a new contract deal with SIDEARM Sports, which is the leader in collegiate web solutions with over 700 colleges on their licenses.

Paul Worstell, Sports Information Director, helped Jewell renew their contract with SIDEARM Sports. His favorite part about the new design is the Game Story template, which is a recap of the sporting event, including stats and pictures. Additionally, the site includes several social media outlets for the William Jewell Department of Athletics.

Worstell anticipates that the website will keep the current design for several years.

“I am always looking at other school’s websites and trying to stay up to date with the current trends of DII athletic websites,” Worstell said.

Besides the new website design, Jewell was a large part of a new conference -wide sports broadcasting network. The Great Lakes Valley Conference Sports Network (GLVCSN) is the first NCAA Division II (DII) conference to launch a sports broadcasting platform for all of the schools in their conference.

Rick Cole, who has been the Director of Sports Broadcasting for four years at Jewell, helped the conference in this endeavor.

“It was a nice honor that the GLVC asked us to help,” Cole said. “After years of hard work from work-study students, I was proud to assist the GLVC in the broadcasting area.”

The new service allows fans to live-stream games from GLVC competitions, including sports like cross-country and golf, which traditionally did not have live coverage in DII sports.

“Watching delayed broadcasts takes the fun out of sports. Live broadcasts give fans the in-house atmosphere that delayed broadcasts do not offer,” Cole said.

The new service allows family, friends and recruits to watch games, which is an excellent recruiting tool for Jewell. The GLVCSN also allows corporate sponsors to sign with the College, which helps promotes Jewell’s image within the Kansas City metro area and the rest of the Midwest.
www.jewellcardinals.com