New site covers student sports

In early October, The Daily Tar Heel teamed up with UNC Campus Recreation and the CommunitySportsDesk company to form DTH Campus Rec Report, UNC’s first online college social networking Web site for club and intramural sports.

While at a trade show in February, Kevin Schwartz, general manager of The Daily Tar Heel, met with CommunitySportsDesk and fleshed out his idea of online self-reporting for underrepresented intramural and club sports.

“There are 27 varsity sports at Chapel Hill, and it’s hard enough to get those in the newspaper,” Schwartz said. “Most college newspapers ignore club sports and intramurals because it’s too big to get their arms around. But so many students are involved in intramural and club sports; it seems silly to ignore it.”

The Campus Rec Report can be reached by clicking the box in the upper right corner of dailytarheel.com.

Director of UNC sports clubs Jason Halsey agreed that intramurals and club sports are a large part of University life.

“We have 1,500 student athletes other than those in varsity competing in a variety of sports and competitions,” he said. “Our student athletes are just as dedicated, competitive and successful and deserve to be recognized for it.”

Schwartz said that the DTH Campus Rec Report is off to a good start, even though it was launched less than a month ago. The site had 315 registered users and 1,341 page views as of Tuesday.

Matt Serpe, business development specialist for CommunitySportsDesk, explained that his company was created so city newspapers could cover sports at a grassroots level. Essentially, the DTH Campus Rec Report follows the same principle.

Serpe said that out of the 40 million kids who play organized sports, fewer than five percent will go on to play a college varsity sport. But an estimated two million will play competitive club sports in college.

Another bonus about the program is that the editorial staff can choose certain stories from the DTH Campus Rec Report to put in the newspaper.

“This is an excellent platform for them to be able to share and have coverage in daily newspaper,” Serpe said. “Campus sports have grown faster than the newspaper. It makes sense to a create campus reporting system for intramural and club sports backed by the campus recreation department.”

Halsey said that DTH Campus Rec Report will cover approximately 50 UNC sports and activities, and the program is still in what he considers the development process.

“It’s going to be very valuable for certain clubs — the ones that take advantage of it and keep it updated on a regular basis,” he said. “It’s a great way to partner with the DTH.”



Contact the Features Editor at features@unc.edu.