Dishing Out  the Assist

Running a high-quality Web site is a tall order for any college athletic department. That’s why specialized Web-hosting companies have stepped up to lend a hand.

Until this past January, Kristene Kelly managed Johnson C. Smith University’s athletic department Web site the old-fashioned way — relying largely on the assistance of the school’s information technology office. She says keeping the site up-to-date was cumbersome and often resulted in Web postings that were less timely than she preferred.

“If I traveled with teams, I’d have to wait until I got back to campus to get articles and updates onto our site,” says Kelly, the sports information director at the Charlotte, N.C.-based historically Black school. 

In late January, the university aligned with CSTV.com, a division of the College Sports TV Networks Inc., to launch www.goldenbull sports.com as the official athletics Web site for the university. While the new site links seamlessly with the university’s regular Web site, the contents of www.goldenbullsports.com are hosted and managed on servers owned and operated by CSTV.

Under the old system, Kelly used the Web publishing software on a campus computer to manage the Web site. But the new arrangement allows school officials to automatically post text and photos by uploading them to CSTV.com servers. The Web site also allows Kelly to post new information from any Internet-connected computer, meaning she can now update scores and statistics even when accompanying her teams on the road.

“We needed an inexpensive content management system that allowed us to quickly update our site from nearly any location,” Kelly says, noting the Web site “is simple to manage.” 

Says Steve Joyner, the university’s athletics director, “Our new Web site showcases all our student-athletes, offers better coverage of our athletic program and can serve as a tremendous recruiting tool for prospective student-athletes.”