I have an open question out there to the powers that be. I saw some testing of equipment in the afternoon. My gut says yes, there will be a presentation of the game on YouTube, there won’t be a production.
Please clip and save for every south side Catholic secondary education provider:
South Side 8th grade parents will Google 3 things non stop from September to December:
catholic high school name tuition cost and financial aid and scholarship programs
catholic high school name open house dates
catholic high school name football roster. Now on this one, I don’t care where you keep your official roster because only a few will find it. MaxPreps and their voodoo SEO wins this search every time. I don’t care if you like it or not. Tend the MaxPreps page as if it’s your own program’s platform because by default in the Search Engine Optimization world, it is.
4) I’ve said this before, until the Arch Diocese changes the test date from the first week of December, Football and it’s platform, for better or worse, outweighs any other public facing avenue a South Side school has. And I understand it’s really only a south side phenomenon. This non-equilibrium of departments doesn’t necessarily exist in the DePaul/Loyola, St. Pats/NND, or Naz/Montini/WSF battles for prospective students’ attention but in the South Side environment, it does. You can bury your head in the sand and delude yourself like a certain Headmaster of the recent past and his existing acolytes…
Or face reality and understand another south side phenomenon for 14 weeks in Autumn is winning or surviving the post-Mass conversations. Your HS gets to be 3 things during these word-of-mouth ‘free’ neighborhood commercials: a growing, vibrant HS, neutral: neither slammed or praised, or be the Joke. Avoid being the Joke on Sundays at all costs.
I mention all this because St. Rita is going on year 2 of switching from NFHS network to YouTube and it’s not getting to the class of MC/BR/LA productions despite the few at my alma mater understanding its importance. It has to be a top down focal point from the Administration to the marketing department to the athletic department. Not to mention, these productions not only possibly connect you to your prospective students, keep ammo out of your enemies chambers post-Mass, but also these productions can engage some in your national/global alumni base more than a mailing ever could.
So let the Administration, Admissions and Marketing focus on another mailer that gets tossed out, an upgraded brochure, or some ignored expressway signage because they will not accept the unfair importance of a department’s platform. A platform that is still relevant only because a dozen families and coaches have worked their tails off keeping it a relevant, mainly top 10/20 program in the state the past 60 years. Because in some minds, having to listen to a Football program’s needs would be an admission of defeat instead of an exciting, relatively low-cost opportunity to optimize an institution’s evangelization of its mission.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk on the South Sides Catholic High Schools’ perpetual arms race.
TL/dr: I believe the game will be on YouTube. I will post the link when I get it. It won’t be as good as it could/should be.
Long-winded Rant.
/Fin
