Relax browsers, HSU communications students will handle the play-by-play webcasting for all three Abilene high schools starting tomorrow night. Working from the offices of the Abilene Reporter News, Kreg Boyd, Josh Green, and Bryan English, all students of Dr. Tim Chandler, assistant professor of communications, will simulcast a text version of high school football play-by-play to a growing audience of web consumers.

High school football is huge in Abilene, but graduates of the schools and parents of current players who are deployed overseas (or otherwise cannot attend) may not have access to local radio or television broadcasts. Since nearly everyone has internet access, the Abilene Reporter News developed a format for games to be simultaneously translated from audio to text, and updated live. To work, the system needs three football-savy translation specialists to do the play-by-play. That’s where Kreg, Josh, and Bryan come in. They will spend their Friday nights broadcasting from the internet offices of the Reporter News to a world-wide audience.

Kreg Boyd gets comfortable at his broadcast station

All three students jumped at the opportunity and met with Laura Guetschke, online content editor for the Reporter News for orientation, assignments, and the inevitable paperwork.

You can tune in to monitor the progress of the games if you’re stuck at work late without a radio, sitting in a command post in Iran, or on vacation in Hawaii.

Here are the links:

Abilene High games

Cooper High games

Wylie High games

Go Friday Night!