2008 Woodie Awards
Yeshiva Athletics Website Gets A Makeover
New Arrival Michael Spinner Instrumental In Changes
Dov Quint
Issue date: 10/22/07 Section: Sports
- Page 1 of 1
To achieve great heights, you must surround yourself with the best. While Joe Bednarsh has done an admirable job as Athletic Director thus far and while there is no doubt he will continue to do so in the future, running a collegiate Athletic Department is no easy task by any stretch of the imagination.
That's why when Mr. Bednarsh was on the prowl for a new Associate Director of Athletics after the departure of Mike Gurock last year, he knew he wanted to surround himself with someone who had experience in the field. Someone who would ensure that the facelift which the Athletic Department has undergone and continues to undergo, is not just an aesthetic one.
Enter Michael Spinner. Spinner has professional background in both coaching, journalism and web management. Two years ago he oversaw the overhaul of the Mount Saint Vincent Athletics website when he was Assistant Athletic Director and Sports Information Director (SID) there. He is also the SID for the Hudson Valley Men's Athletics Conference and Hudson Valley Women's Athletics Conference, and is in the process of developing new websites for both conferences. "I guess you can say that websites are, 'my thing,'" said Spinner. Lucky for us at YU. "
"The overhaul of the athletics website at Yeshiva was the first thing Joe Bednarsh and I discussed when I accepted the position at YU, and we agreed that an overhaul of the website would be my first major project," says Spinner. He began working at YU on June 1, and within a week had initial meetings with the YU web development team concerning the overhaul and redesign. Over the last four months, there have been countless meetings, training sessions, and hundreds of e-mails that made the new site possible. Spinner credited the incredible work of YU Communcations' Morris Isaacson and Edwin Malave for building the website. I recently got to sit down with Spinner to discuss the website and its progress.
DQ: Talk a little bit about the functional differences in this year's website from last year's.
MS: The biggest difference between the former website and the new website is that the new site is built specifically to present up-to-the-minute information regarding our department, something that has become a staple among college athletics departments, everywhere. The old YU athletics website did a terrific job giving general information regarding our department, schedules, directions to events, etc., but it did not provide the updated information that you find in other athletics websites. This new site will have news, features, results, statistics, and everything else associated with our department available pretty much as news happens. If we win a Soccer game on Thursday night, by Friday morning, at the latest, I hope to see a press release and statistics up on the site. It's a lofty goal considering the size of our department, but I think it's a very important one for Yeshiva University.
Also, the design is cleaner, neater, and more presentable. I've overseen the creation of several websites during my career, and I have always been a fan of a simple but effective design. I think we have accomplished that here.
DQ: In the process of upgrading an athletic department as a whole, why is a better website important?
MS: One of the biggest changes we have seen across college athletics everywhere is that websites has become the most essential component of a department's marketing, promotions, and communications efforts. When I was a lacrosse player at Pace University during the late 1990's, they printed schedule cards; we folded them by hand and went door-to-door. The day of a game, we would hang up flyers all over campus, and if we won, we'd hang up more flyers. Today, a good athletics website is the one and only source of information for the entire athletics community, past, present, and future. If we're doing this right, our students and student-athletes will be able to keep track of one another and get information regarding our events, our alumni will also be able to check up on their former teams, and future YU student-athletes will be able to get valuable information regarding our programs as they consider whether or not to attend Yeshiva University.
DQ: How do you envision the average Yeshiva student using the new YU Athletics website?
MS: Obviously, that depends on the level of interest a student has in our department and YU Athletics, but if a student/staff member/faculty member/administrator/alumnus is a Maccabee die-hard, I hope they'll think of us as the "Daily News" for YU Athletics. This site is going to be updated as news happens. That means several updates per day in some cases. In an ideal world, "Maccabee Nation" will visit us every day and read up on our teams and events … and I also hope the updated information will lead to better attendance at events and more overall interest in YU Athletics.
DQ: We know about macslive.com which broadcasts Macs Basketball over the internet. Do you ever envision some day down the road when Macs games will have live streaming video of games online?
MS: I envision doing everything within my power and abilities to give our student-athletes and those who follow YU Athletics the best possible experience, and I'm going to do everything within my abilities to market and promote our department at the highest possible level. We have a terrific group in MacsLive who do a wonderful job promoting our department, and I am hopeful that they will continue to be successful in bringing our athletics community and basketball program closer together. My plan is to continue to support the great people at MacsLive, and I would love to see if we could ever expand their efforts to include other sports. In the meantime, I am looking forward to catching up with our Maccabees on MacsLive just as much as the biggest of die-hard YU Basketball fans.
In what is a just a taste of the continued upgrade to the department as a whole, this is only the beginning for the YU Athletics website. The department plans on updating, upgrading, and re-overhauling the site regularly with the hopes that one day Yeshiva has one of the very best athletics websites in all of Division III. Now if only we had the best athletics teams in Division III. With what this leadership team has accomplished in such a short period of time, anything seems possible.
To access the new athletics website, visit www.yu.edu/athletics
Contact Dov: quint@yu.edu
That's why when Mr. Bednarsh was on the prowl for a new Associate Director of Athletics after the departure of Mike Gurock last year, he knew he wanted to surround himself with someone who had experience in the field. Someone who would ensure that the facelift which the Athletic Department has undergone and continues to undergo, is not just an aesthetic one.
Enter Michael Spinner. Spinner has professional background in both coaching, journalism and web management. Two years ago he oversaw the overhaul of the Mount Saint Vincent Athletics website when he was Assistant Athletic Director and Sports Information Director (SID) there. He is also the SID for the Hudson Valley Men's Athletics Conference and Hudson Valley Women's Athletics Conference, and is in the process of developing new websites for both conferences. "I guess you can say that websites are, 'my thing,'" said Spinner. Lucky for us at YU. "
"The overhaul of the athletics website at Yeshiva was the first thing Joe Bednarsh and I discussed when I accepted the position at YU, and we agreed that an overhaul of the website would be my first major project," says Spinner. He began working at YU on June 1, and within a week had initial meetings with the YU web development team concerning the overhaul and redesign. Over the last four months, there have been countless meetings, training sessions, and hundreds of e-mails that made the new site possible. Spinner credited the incredible work of YU Communcations' Morris Isaacson and Edwin Malave for building the website. I recently got to sit down with Spinner to discuss the website and its progress.
DQ: Talk a little bit about the functional differences in this year's website from last year's.
MS: The biggest difference between the former website and the new website is that the new site is built specifically to present up-to-the-minute information regarding our department, something that has become a staple among college athletics departments, everywhere. The old YU athletics website did a terrific job giving general information regarding our department, schedules, directions to events, etc., but it did not provide the updated information that you find in other athletics websites. This new site will have news, features, results, statistics, and everything else associated with our department available pretty much as news happens. If we win a Soccer game on Thursday night, by Friday morning, at the latest, I hope to see a press release and statistics up on the site. It's a lofty goal considering the size of our department, but I think it's a very important one for Yeshiva University.
Also, the design is cleaner, neater, and more presentable. I've overseen the creation of several websites during my career, and I have always been a fan of a simple but effective design. I think we have accomplished that here.
DQ: In the process of upgrading an athletic department as a whole, why is a better website important?
MS: One of the biggest changes we have seen across college athletics everywhere is that websites has become the most essential component of a department's marketing, promotions, and communications efforts. When I was a lacrosse player at Pace University during the late 1990's, they printed schedule cards; we folded them by hand and went door-to-door. The day of a game, we would hang up flyers all over campus, and if we won, we'd hang up more flyers. Today, a good athletics website is the one and only source of information for the entire athletics community, past, present, and future. If we're doing this right, our students and student-athletes will be able to keep track of one another and get information regarding our events, our alumni will also be able to check up on their former teams, and future YU student-athletes will be able to get valuable information regarding our programs as they consider whether or not to attend Yeshiva University.
DQ: How do you envision the average Yeshiva student using the new YU Athletics website?
MS: Obviously, that depends on the level of interest a student has in our department and YU Athletics, but if a student/staff member/faculty member/administrator/alumnus is a Maccabee die-hard, I hope they'll think of us as the "Daily News" for YU Athletics. This site is going to be updated as news happens. That means several updates per day in some cases. In an ideal world, "Maccabee Nation" will visit us every day and read up on our teams and events … and I also hope the updated information will lead to better attendance at events and more overall interest in YU Athletics.
DQ: We know about macslive.com which broadcasts Macs Basketball over the internet. Do you ever envision some day down the road when Macs games will have live streaming video of games online?
MS: I envision doing everything within my power and abilities to give our student-athletes and those who follow YU Athletics the best possible experience, and I'm going to do everything within my abilities to market and promote our department at the highest possible level. We have a terrific group in MacsLive who do a wonderful job promoting our department, and I am hopeful that they will continue to be successful in bringing our athletics community and basketball program closer together. My plan is to continue to support the great people at MacsLive, and I would love to see if we could ever expand their efforts to include other sports. In the meantime, I am looking forward to catching up with our Maccabees on MacsLive just as much as the biggest of die-hard YU Basketball fans.
In what is a just a taste of the continued upgrade to the department as a whole, this is only the beginning for the YU Athletics website. The department plans on updating, upgrading, and re-overhauling the site regularly with the hopes that one day Yeshiva has one of the very best athletics websites in all of Division III. Now if only we had the best athletics teams in Division III. With what this leadership team has accomplished in such a short period of time, anything seems possible.
To access the new athletics website, visit www.yu.edu/athletics
Contact Dov: quint@yu.edu
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