By Griffin Powell

Sports media is important for the foundation of an athletic program. It is used to create an identity and give variety to showcase athletes’ talents and skills. Greensboro College Head Media Director, Stephen Widenhouse, has taken the initiative to give athletes a great media experience. He has done so by increasing the quality of videos, incorporating interviews, and even giving students the opportunity to volunteer and display their talents as interns. His talents and great ideas have not gone unnoticed throughout the Greensboro community.

In previous years, GC sports media has lacked in certain aspects. Widenhouse has made it his mission to expand GC’s media presence.

“We came in this year with a big focus to enhance our media,” Widenhouse said. “We had an idea how to enhance various aspects including our media days as well as our social media. We were also able to gain valuable interns and work study students.”

Since Widenhouse took over as director, GC sports media has valued the true student-athlete experience. It is very important to him and is something he deems very important in his work.

“We felt it was necessary in enhancing the student-athlete experience when they can have a fun media day, see themselves on highlights and doing fun things on social media,” he said. “That content can be shared with their family and this further enhances their experience.”

Sports media continues to expand and change daily. With new technology and different methods and effects, the ceiling for sports media gets higher. Widenhouse has done his best with the resources provided to keep up with the times of sports media.

“I would like to add cool gadgets to our media days as well as a smoke machine,” Widenhouse said. “We continue to experiment with things such as our live streams and different camera angles. However, something that could use improvement is the content we put onto our social media.”

With everything that Widenhouse does and everything he must manage, it is important there are people willing to perfect their craft and do work study with the social media team. Even if it is somebody willing to boost their experience, they are always welcome to join the team.

“Even if it isn’t an internship or work study, if somebody wants to gain media experience, they are always welcome to do so,” Widenhouse said. “We cover many aspects of the sports community, not just videography. The main ones though consist of videography, video editing, photography, live streams, broadcasting, live stats, writing articles, or the production of social media content.”