Down on the Tiger basketball court, senior Zane Bender fakes one way, spins the other and leaps for a resounding dunk as the Tigers expand an early over the McCook Bison.
Meanwhile, up in the stands Hastings Public Schools elementary students Demetrios Theoharis and Jack Ortegren call an internet broadcast of the game with the fervor of ESPN announcers.
With the help of their fathers, Pete Theoharis and Kirk Ortegren, and Activities Director Tracy Douglas, the boys are using the internet streaming service “The Cube” to telecast both boys and girls basketball games.
The idea came about when Douglas started to see an increase in the amount of schools using internet broadcasting for parents or fans that aren’t able to make it to games.
“We started to watch that more and more schools were broadcasting,” Douglas said.
They then approached the school board with a proposal for the equipment which was accepted with the idea of further growth in mind.
Their first attempt was the girls basketball game verses McCook on January 13. Since then they have reached 288 views on that game and 214 views on the boys game that followed.
With their current system, the boys and their production staff have run into some problems.
“There’s no piece for us to be able to hear each other, so we talk at the same time and can’t hear each other. It’s been really hard to get both the mics to work at the same time,” Theoharis said.
Even with the difficulties, the sports journalists in the making enjoy their time being part of the game day environment.
“Its play to play. It is real basketball. It is nothing like fake. I am actually up there doing it live and everybody in the world can listen,” Ortegren said.
This isn’t Ortegren’s first time in the Hastings High sports information business. He ran the GameChanger, internet scorekeeping software, for the softball team last fall.
Theoharis has also been a long time follower of Tiger sports.
“I was really little when I started going to (HHS softball) practices with my dad so I started to get interested. HHS has really good sports teams,” Theoharis said.
However, it isn’t all fun and games for them. Both boys consider this as part of their education for future careers.
“It’s always been a dream for me to be a part of sports media,” Theoharis said. “I plan on doing it as long as I can. I would also like to try some other things like running the scoreboard our announcing to the crowd. I would also like to do TV sometime,” Ortegren said.
But it doesn’t mean they’re not having a blast when they call energetic plays.
“My favorite part has been calling crazy plays like when Zane Bender dunked his second time of the day,” Theoharis said.
This broadcasting project will begin to grow from these youthful seeds, but Douglas hopes to expand the service to high school broadcasters as part of the school’s journalism program.
“I would love to see students that are interested in sports broadcasting, we could start to get a schedule set up and they could rotate games,” Douglas said.
