Athletic Events To Be Broadcast On Student Radio Station, Internet

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — More than 60 Wittenberg University athletic events scheduled during the 2005-06 school year can be heard locally in the Springfield community and throughout the world via the Internet throughout the 2005-06 school year. For the third straight year, WUSO 89.1-FM, the student-run campus radio station, will serve as the flagship home of the Tigers, and its broadcasts of varsity athletic events will be streamed on the World Wide Web by Stretch Internet.

The first broadcast of the 2005-06 school year is the Tiger football game against Capital University at Edwards-Maurer Field on Saturday, Sept. 3. Wittenberg Game Day, a one-hour pre-game show, will get things started at 6 p.m., with the game's kick-off slated for 7 p.m.

Every football, men's basketball and women's basketball game, including any potential postseason games, will be broadcast on both the student station and the Internet. Check out Wittenberg's athletics Web site for schedules and updates and a link to the broadcast home page.

Marty Bannister, the Voice of the Tigers for football for 12 years, is back for another go-around, this time alongside either Tim Dellapina, a former Tiger football captain, or Jim Scoby, both prominent local sports figures who will share time as color commentators. Bannister is a familiar voice to sports fans throughout Central Ohio as the play-by-play announcer for The Ohio State University women's basketball broadcasts and the Columbus Destroyers, an Arena Football League team, the last two years. He also has been the play-by-play announcer for countless local high school sports broadcasts on both radio and Time Warner television.

Scott Leo, the Voice of the Tigers for women's basketball the last five years and men's basketball the last two years, is coordinating the broadcasts. He is handling all duties on Wittenberg Game Day, and Leo also will fill in on football game announcing duties as needed. The play-by-play announcer and public relations director for the Frontier League's Richmond (Ind.) Roosters the last two years, Leo once again plans to head up the Wittenberg men's and women's basketball broadcasts in 2005-06 as the play-by-play announcer.

Leo and Bannister are also co-hosts of Tiger Talk, a popular weekly coaches show that can be heard from 8-9 p.m. on Thursday nights during the football season. The show, which will make its 2005 debut on Sept. 8, includes interviews with players and coaches from Joe's Route 40 Grill in Springfield.

Sean Golden of Columbus, Ohio, Wittenberg class of 2007, plans to work the sidelines during football games offering commentary and on-field insights and then help with announcing duties during the basketball season as his schedule permits. He has worked on numerous broadcasts the last two years.

Any other students who are interested in taking part in the broadcasts should contact Wittenberg Sports Information Director Ryan Maurer by e-mail or via phone at (937) 327-6114.

Wittenberg partnered with Stretch to make selected sporting events available around the world for the first time in September 2003, and the results have been outstanding. Wittenberg fans do not have to pay to listen to broadcasts, and anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can log in and listen without risk of getting bumped off due to bandwidth limitations.

Stretch Internet utilizes QuickTime, Apple's premiere multimedia suite of products. Listeners need only to download the free QuickTime Player (it's already installed on most computers sold in recent years), and they're ready to listen to Wittenberg games live. QuickTime has reached more than 100 million MacIntosh and PC users and works just like other popular multimedia applications such as Windows Media Player or Real Player.

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