Wildcat Rewind can meet your local sports watching needs
Published 7:00 am Saturday, April 4, 2020
Live sports have ended due to the outbreak of COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean sports fans don’t have games to watch.
Pearl River Community College is launching Wildcat Rewind, which is an online stream of past athletic events, which will take place every Wednesday at 11 a.m. due to the cancellation of spring sports.
Fans can watch the stream from Facebook (PRCCAthletics), Twitter (@PRCCAthletics), on YouTube (Pearl River Community College) and at PRCCMedia.com.
Mark Franklin, Assistant Director of Communications for Athletics, said he got the idea so that students, athletes and community members could see some of the best wins of the season prior to the cancellation of spring sports.
Sports are intertwined with peoples’ lives around the world and without live games to watch Franklin wanted to give the people something to enjoy.
“I thought about how big sports is in every day lives. We can’t give our audience live sports right now, but anything we can do to pass the time I’m 100 percent for,” Franklin said.
Each week a different sport and team will be featured, which will provide watchers with fresh content every time the stream is on.
Streams began April 1 with the mens basketball team’s Region XXIII championship game featured.
Franklin said not only do the streams allow fans to watch PRCC teams take on opponents, but it also keeps people thinking about sports during these troubling times.
“Due to the circumstances, sports are on the back burner and anything we can do to put us in the public eye and keep audience engaged we will,” Franklin said.
Not only can fans and community members watch, but the athletes themselves have a chance to see their highlights.
Whether it be a monster home run or violent dunk, the players can see how they performed and take in the reactions of those watching.
“I’m sure these kids can get the film from coaches, but going on Twitter and seeing that dunk and going ‘Oh that was awesome.’ That’s the experience we want to give to our kids,” Franklin said.
Franklin said once students have finished schoolwork, or even if they’re just trying to stay entertained, the streams of past games will allow current Wildcats to relive the highlights of seasons gone by.
“It gives us one more way to interact with student athletes, show we care and show we’re not forgetting them,” Franklin said.
There’s no telling when athletics in general will be allowed to start back up again.
Programs that use the summer as a time for practice and development may lose out on that time if the outbreak isn’t contained before then.
Everything is up in the air, which is why the streams will continue for the foreseeable future.
“As of right now the plan is to just keep this going until fall sports officially start and we’re back into a regular calendar. At that point what we’ll be streaming will be exclusively live sports, but we’re not going to rule out revisiting this in the future,” Franklin said.