By Katie Smith, A&E Editor
Newman’s Athletic Department created a podcast in December, coined JetCast, where coaches and athletes are given the opportunity to be featured and to talk about their teams’ progressions.
Blake Cripps, the voice of the Jets, will be hosting the JetCast. Cripps has worked with the Athletic Department for several years doing play by plays for the basketball team and has recently started with the baseball team.
After external factors forced the athletic coverage off of AM/FM, Zane Ehling, Associate Athletic Director for External Operations, took it into his hands to make sure games were getting covered.
“We just did everything we could to make sure we continued to have a way for our basketball games to still have play by play when the radio contract fell through. It was just a matter of figuring out the best way to do it,” Ehling said in an email.
Cripps said that a handful of Division I and II schools have been moving away from sports coverage over the radio to the internet.
“Any way that they can try and get the brand of Newman University Athletics out there…Obviously I think it’d be better to have the games on both the app and the radio, but it is the future,” Cripps said.
Over winter break, Ehling worked on producing a phone application for fans to access both game coverage and the JetCast.
“There’s so many things that go online now in terms of content, streaming and sports so Newman University Athletics has an app. You can listen to the games right on your phone, very convenient and easy to do. The sound quality is exactly what you’d have if you were listening on the radio,” Cripps said.
When deciding who to interview for the JetCast podcast every week, Cripps said that it is important to him to make every sport feel significant.
“Every sport that Newman offers, we have a coach and a player on at least once, if not twice a year. If Newman is going to offer a sport, then I am going to do a podcast for it.”
Cripps said he believes Newman’s strongest sport is basketball.
“Because basketball is so central to the student life and so important to the culture of Newman University, I try to have someone from basketball on every week,” he said. “Outside of that it’s what is in season.”
Podcasts will be released at 6 p.m. every Wednesday as long as a game does not interfere with the release time. When an interference occurs, fans can access the podcast around 1 p.m. that same day. The JetCast is being used to showcase coaches and athletes from each sport. The Newman community can access the JetCast at newmanjets.com/podcasts or through the Newman Athletics app.
PHOTO: Courtesy Photo, Newman Athletics
