Sports Fans Given Chance to Watch Virtually

Like most sports all across the country, the coronavirus has affected the viewing status of sporting events at HUHS as only two family members per player can now attend games.

The North Shore conference had made it a rule for this year's sporting events that athletes are allowed to have only two family members in the audience. Due to this rule students and other fans are not allowed to attend games.

Without fans and students in attendance, HUHS had to come up with an alternative to give others viewing access to the games. HUHS and many other schools in the North Shore conference decided to have their matches live streamed on YouTube and Facebook Live using the HUDL cameras in the gyms.

Athletic director Scott Helms said that live streaming the sports was a great alternative to watching the games in person.

“Not only did it provide family members who live in the area live access to the event,” Helms said. “It also provided family and relatives that live further away the ability to watch our events.”

HUHS assigned the task of setting up the live streams to teacher Vinny Daniels. Daniels not only activates the streams, but he also manually streams the soccer games which can be challenging.

“Soccer can be tough because I have to follow the ball,” Daniels said. “The ball will travel 40 yards one direction and 30 yards in another direction within seconds. That takes some work.”

The live streams usually cover all home games for HUHS sports. This is about three to six events in a light week or ten to twelve events in a heavy week.

With Daniels being in charge of setting up live streams, it has caused him to stress about getting back and forth from HUHS and his home while also having time to do what he wants. As an avid runner, Daniels needs to get creative to find time to run, shower, and eat.

“One day I was on an 8 mile run with my phone going,” Daniels said. “I watched the game sporadically during my run so that I could stop the volleyball stream for JV/JV2 immediately upon conclusion and setup/launch the varsity stream in the other gym all without losing pace.”

Although the overall task of starting the streams has been a learning curve, it is also worth doing to Daniels as well as Helms.

“I enjoy giving back to HUHS Athletics. I love high school sports so it has been great being one of the few people allowed into events,” Daniels said. “It is a little annoying driving back and forth from my house in Germantown, but it is worth it to allow people to see kids play.”