By Staff
Coaching Management, 13.10, December 2005, http://www.momentummedia.com/articles/cm/cm1310/bblonghorns.htm
Would you allow video cameras at all of your practices, in the weightroom during strength training sessions, and even into the locker room before games and during halftime? Mack Brown, Head Coach at the University of Texas, is doing just that. As part of the university’s “Get Hooked” campaign, the Longhorns are being show-cased in an Internet-based video magazine that is updated monthly throughout the season.
For an annual subscription fee of $24.95, alumni and fans can access the Longhorns Vmag through Texas’ football Web site. In five hour-long issues of the video magazine (the first of which is free), subscribers can watch the Texas football program from an insider’s point of view. Features include a day with quarterback Vince Young, tours of Brown’s office and summer retreat, and training sessions with Strength and Conditioning Coach Jeff Madden.
Subscribers receive an e-mail when new editions are available for download. The full-screen television-quality picture can be viewed on most computers. “We’re trying to stay on the cutting edge of technology,” Brown told The NCAA News. “People are interested in the inside story, and we can start telling those stories in a controlled setting.”
NEWgame Communications, Inc., produces Vmags, and is headed by Kathleen Hessert, also president of Sports Media Challenge, a consulting firm that has worked with Brown for years. Hessert says that while Brown has allowed exclusive access to her camera crews and production team, he hasn’t let them interfere with the way he runs the program.
Madden has granted access to his training program and is getting some rare attention. “One of the reasons Coach Brown is allowing this inside look is because it’s a valuable way to give the right kind of exposure to assistant coaches like Jeff Madden,” Hessert says. “These coaches aren’t on the six o’clock news or the front page of the sports section every day.”
Another Vmag feature is coverage of rookie orientation, an area the public is often not let in on, but is of great interest—especially to the recruits who are expected to view the video magazine. “For recruiting purposes, this is a real edge for Texas,” Hessert says. “Recruits and their parents can watch and understand more about the program. When my son was being recruited to play football, I wanted to know everything I could. This type of information is invaluable to a parent.”
To view a free introductory copy of the Texas Longhorns Vmag, visit: mackbrown-texasfootball.com.