By Carrie Groman
During the James Madison University women’s soccer game against Charlotte, I shadowed Ms. Mila Sue Wisecarver the Sports Information Director (SID). To start I arrived at the game an hour and a half before kick off. During pregame, many planning activities took place that enabled the event to run smoothly. Starting lineups were radioed in from down on the field and the radio proved to be an important tool used throughout the game.
It was interesting to see the differences between the marketing team and SID’s objectives. Marketing was focused on each fan’s experience and the SID was focused on providing an unbiased report of the game.
Once the game started, stats and substitutions were the main focus of the SID. The radio was the tool utilized to call in substitutions and stats were kept on a computer in the press box. At half time and after the game, the stat sheets were given to all media and both teams. Twitter was used twice during the game once at half time and once at the end of the game. This was the biggest aspect that could be improved. For certain teams, JMUsports uses Twitter a great deal and for others not as much. Leveling this out would make a huge improvement and attract a wider audience to all teams at JMU, rather than just a few.
After the game, stats had to be signed off by both of the referees. There was also an opportunity to take quotes from the players and coaches. The SID wrote the post game story from the notes that were taken throughout the game and it was to be uploaded to the website as soon as possible.
With the new University Park facility, numerous positive changes have occurred. The new press box allows for everything to run smoothly.
When I asked about the previous press box at the old field, I was informed that there was not one. There use to be what they called “donkeys” and previous to that there was simply a table. One huge disadvantage to this was that if it started to rain and they wanted to take video, the video would be cancelled because the equipment could not get wet. The new facility prevents this disadvantage from happening as well as many others.
Overall I liked the job, but at times I forget how time consuming it could be. In comparison to the baseball and basketball games I have helped with, I liked helping with soccer the most. I played soccer and love the sport, so the time commitment did not discourage me. Soccer has a great deal of immediacy to me, making job shadowing a productive and eye opening experience.