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Lowdown on Penguin Rundown
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YSU students Zack Humphries, back left, and Pat Andrews, back right, are the anchors for Penguin Rundown, a weekly highlights show on Penguin athletics. Humphries is an Ursuline High graduate, while Andrews graduated from Canfield High School. Jon Raidel, seated, is the executive producer. He is a graduate of Girard High School.
Students get hands-on experience
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
On Monday afternoon inside the Coaches Court at Beeghly Center, Pat Andrews and the rest of the Penguin Rundown crew were preparing for that day’s taping when YSU sports information director Trevor Parks noticed Andrews’ white belt.
“Hey, if you need a white balance, just go off Pat’s belt,” Parks said.
Over the next 90 minutes, Andrews was also called “Hey, white belt!” and “Mr. White Belt.”
“I like the belt, my mom bought me the belt, so I’m going to keep wearing the [darn] belt,” Andrews said.
“Dude, if you stop wearing the belt, they’ll have nothing to rip on you for,” said Andrews’ co-anchor, Zack Humphries.
Not true. He’ll also be teased about his cold — he’s got a bag of Halls cough drops nearby and jokes that he’s just going to introduce himself and let Humphries do the rest — and whether it helps him with the ladies.
Each week, the five-man Penguin Rundown crew spends several hours editing highlights, preparing graphics, writing copy, setting up equipment and — to keep things light — ripping on each other and their belts. Finally, after all the work is done, Humphries and Andrews go in front of the camera and knock the show out in one 10-minute take.
“That was really good,” said production assistant Kevin Davis.
Penguin Rundown, a weekly, Web-based highlights show that recaps the week in YSU athletics, debuted on ysusports.com on Labor Day. It started as an offshoot of the school’s sports webcasting, which began last school year.
“We met and exceeded their expectations [with the webcasting] and they wanted to go to the next step,” said executive producer Jon Raidel, a senior telecommunications major who graduated from Girard High in 2004. “They asked, ‘Why don’t we do a recap and highlight show of all the athletics?’”
Humphries, who does play-by-play for the webcasts, liked the idea, feeling it was a chance to get more hands-on experience in his major, communications media.
“The things you learn in the classroom are important but until you get out there and do some things hands on, especially with all this technological stuff, you really can’t learn everything,” said Humphries, a junior who graduated from Ursuline in 2008. “You get really good experience and you’re obviously only going to get better with time.”
Monday’s show started with highlights of the football team’s 34-29 loss to North Dakota State, followed a clip from Coach Eric Wolford’s postgame press conference, a boxscore and the conference standings. From there, they recapped the soccer team’s recent games — without highlights — again showing boxscores and standings, then showed highlights from the volleyball team’s recent games, followed by boxscores and standings.
“It took a couple weeks to get comfortable in front of the camera, but, obviously, as time goes on, I get better,” said Andrews, a junior communications major who graduated from Canfield in 2007. “It’s great, hands-on experience.”
Raidel, who has spent thousands buying much of the equipment they use, already has one toe in the professional sector. He produces a pro wrestling show for SportsTime Ohio and wants to eventually work for a channel such as the Big Ten Network. He and Davis, a senior broadcast and telecommunications major who graduated from LaBrae in 2001, handle the production end, while Humphries and Andrews are “the talent.” Hubbard High graduate Ben Lane, a former YSU fullback, has already graduated but returns to help out.
“We’ve gotten some compliments from the football office, the coaches,” said Humphries, who said the site is viewed by several hundred people each week. “I think the show is cool because the local news covers football and basketball, but there’s not time to cover the volleyballs and tennises of the world.”
The biggest drawback is the time commitment. It requires several hours each week and the students get no course credit — although that will soon change — and no money.
What they do get is a chance to help future students.
“Course credit is fine but I know once I graduate, there’s going to be something here that wasn’t here before,” said Raidel, “and I’m part of that.”