As you’ve probably heard, we’re about to trot out a new look www.nsudemons.com website.
When? Soon. We were aiming for Feb. 1, but the new site pulled a hamstring, figuratively speaking. All the bells weren’t ringing and the whistles weren’t whistling.
It has taken longer than we wanted to, but the work will be worth it. Maybe we’ll have a Valentine’s Day gift for you. Perhaps it will be President’s Day. Hopefully it won’t be Leap Year Day! But the curtain won’t come up until we’re ready to impress you.
We’ll have vastly enhanced features. We’ll retain all of the existing elements and bring in some new options that you’re going to enjoy. We’ll continue to expand the services we provide in the weeks and months ahead.
The process began almost a year ago as we looked for ways to better reach you, and better expand our reach to bring in more interest and support for NSU and Northwestern Athletics.
But instead of looking ahead, let’s look back and give credit to some people who have allowed us to have a homegrown nsudemons.com site that has been innovative in its approaches.
First on that list is our longtime secretary in the sports information office, the late Rhenda Cedars. She dragged me, kicking and screaming, along the technology path before her untimely passing from cancer at the age of 47 in January 2001.
Rhenda told me, “Doug, we have to get a website. It’s going to be like having our own newspaper, radio station and TV station all wrapped up into one place.” She and her husband Bobby had that vision and she expressed it well before we got on track to launch the site in 1999.
That first iteration of the site, and the current design, were built at home, by our good friends at CP-Tel of Natchitoches. Richard Gill is the president of CP-Tel and he put tremendous emphasis on providing NSU Athletics with what we needed, disregarding at times what it would cost his company. It was not just a business endeavor with him, but more a sense of pride in helping out Northwestern. That will surprise nobody who knows Richard.
When we redesigned, relaunching in the summer of 2003, it was a year-long process steered by the extremely capable hands and mind of webmaster Luke Brouillette. Luke is a superb guitarist (visit www.lukejazz.com to get an appreciation for that aspect of his life) whose good humor and great capacity for understanding poorly-expressed concepts by those less skilled than himself (me) allowed us to far surpass our peers around the state and Southland Conference, and indeed the bulk of the “mid-major” Division I community, with the nsudemons.com website.
All the while, he gave us a "website use for dummies" framework from which to operate that kept my head from swimming and allowed us a wide range of capabilities and options to keep this site vibrant.
We were the first in the state to provide live stats. We created a feature column, “Demon Dust,” that still only a few college websites provide. We added the “Daily Demon Blog” a couple of years ago ? still, surprisingly, few other colleges do anything like that.
Luke’s skill allowed us to provide secure online transactions for tickets and merchandise. We created “Gary’s Gallery” showcasing the great photography of NSU shutterbug Gary Hardamon. We provided audio streaming, free of charge, of NSU broadcasts. We were able to use Luke-created banners and billboards to brag about our high points and to promote upcoming events.
And it was Luke who told us about other things that would be developing, tools we needed to utilize but elements that would tax his capacity to do the day to day tasks he does for CP-Tel.
We got way, way more from Luke, Richard and CP-Tel than we bargained for. As we step away from our local friends being our web provider, I thought it was high time we let you know just how much they’ve done for us, and for you.
Although Jermaine Wallace's game-winning shot in the 2006 NCAA Tournament brought NSU more immediate attention, this website has been a bigger long-term benefit for NSU athletics.
I'm just glad I've had the chance to enjoy both!
