Here is a nostalgic look back at the origins of the athletic department "sports information hotline”. In the 1980's and 1990's, the sports hotline was a great phone tool for in-house sports news and score updates, a boon for keeping fans updated on the action in the days before the internet and the new media/social media tools we employ today.
St. Thomas (Minn.) SID Gene McGivern, writing for his athletic blog, had many SID’s from across all divisions weigh in on the topic of past and continued sports hotline use. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Find McGivern's entire commentary at www.tommiesports.com .
** Below are excerpts from McGivern's article.Once upon a time, some college sports information offices embraced an emerging technology to serve their teams’ followers.
It was a quick and easy way for fans and media to instantly get score updates, final results, schedules and breaking news. It was free for most fans to access, and could be relatively easy and inexpensive for institutions to operate.
The new technology didn’t involve a computer, fax machine or cell phone. It was introduced long before the internet, webcasts, videocasts, podcasts, live stats, RSS feeds, text messaging, E-scores, Twitter or Facebook.
This high-tech breakthrough tool? A telephone hotline.
At St. Thomas, the Tommie Ticker has been in existence for more than 20 years. By calling 651-962-5940, fans still can get scores, ticket and schedule information, plus breaking news, such as postponed baseball or softball games.
St. Thomas' service is updated 4-5 times a week on game nights between September and May. An exception is when the Toms are competing in NCAA playoff events - then, several in-game updates are offered.
Yabba dabba doo!
The sports information hotline report can be brief and to the point, or be creative and fun.
“I’ve found you can use the hotline to make a score or detail engaging and fun, something a basic AP-style release really doesn't capture,” said Guilford (N.C.) SID Dave Walters. “I remember my mentor at Ithaca, Pete Moore, once starting a hotline this way: ’Thanks for calling the Ithaca College Sports Hotline. If Fred Flintstone was a Bombers’ fan, today he's be saying "Yabba dabba doo.’"
“I usually provide a lot of information in my reports,” said Calvin (Mich.) SID Jeff Febus. “It gives a little more detail than what I could do with Twitter.”
And this summer - like in 2001 - callers who dial the Tommie Ticker still hear the final update from the Tommies' 2009 baseball national championship, which was recorded a few seconds after the title game ended. (It's not exactly Al Michaels asking 1980 Olympic hockey viewers, "Do you believe in miracles?," but hopefully you can feel the emotion of the moment.)
(The hotline) was an another task added to their to-do list, but many SIDs saw it as a good service to a school’s most rabid fans as well as parents, alumni, donors, and media.
The concept made even more sense at non-Division I schools, which rarely have the same radio and TV exposure for their teams.
University of Virginia’s original phone-in service, called “Sportsline,” was first and foremost for media use.
“Interviews with coaches, student-athletes and administrators were featured on our Sportsline, and there might also be post-game comments from coaches,” said Rich Murray, Virginia's Associate AD for Public Relations. “We later went to a score line and refined it to where anyone could call in and punch a number to listen to the results for a particular sport. A couple of years ago our sense was not many people were utilizing the system so we dropped it. The Sportsline served us well back in the day.”
Greg Capell, now an assistant athletic director at Colorado College, launched St. Thomas' Tommie Ticker during a stretch from the late 1980s at the beginning of a seven-year run as SID.
“I'm guessing it was around 1987 when I started it,” Capell said. “I remember getting a couple of nasty phone messages from fans when I didn't update it quickly enough, which told me that at least people were calling in. It was probably my first attempt at facilitating peoples' need for ‘instant’ sports news, a need that I know has been taken to a new level with web sites.”
Techology rules
Fast forward 20 years.
Today, hotlines are especially scarce in Division I. One of the last holdovers, Notre Dame, just decided to retire its call-in option and will rely on Twitter, Facebook, e-mails texts and its website to serve its followers.
But at Connecticut, the Husky Hotline lives on. “Obviously, the number of calls have decreased over the years, but there is still a steady number of people who call in,” said UConn associate AD Mike Enright.
Personal touch
“We still have a telephone hotline available since many elderly followers and supporters don’t have or ever use a computer,” said Franklin (Ind.) SID Kevin Elixman.
“Sometimes folks aren't near the computer, but they usually have a cell phone,” said Guilford’s Walters, who still maintains his hotline.
“We still run a Calvin sports hotline phone service,” said Febus. “It is very popular with our older alumni and fans. It’s quick and easy to update from anywhere, too. As long as we continue to receive positive feedback, we'll continue to operate ours.”
For other SIDs, it was the right call to let their hotlines go the way of 8-track tapes, rotary telephones, Walkman radios and Beta VCRs.
“We discontinued the use of the hotline probably five or six years ago," said Kalamazoo (Mich.) SID Steve Wideen. "Our machine tracked the calls and the numbers were low, so we decided it wasn't worth the time or expense of the extra line. A few people, mostly retired staff, were disappointed to see the hotline go, so I gave them my cell phone number and told them to call anytime they wanted a score. It was more efficient to answer their calls a few times a year than to update the hotline 100-plus times a year."
We aim to please
“We are still doing a sports hotline,” said Gettysburg SID Braden Snyder. “I continue to be surprised by the number of people - and not always the older fans - who say they check it. But any thoughts I had of discontinuing it fell by the wayside when our new president told me she checks it.”
Forgotten, but not gone. That seems to sum up the state of the sports information hotline in 2009.