How Athletic Directors Ensure Every Sport Benefits with Capture and Performance Tools

High school athletic directors are always looking for ways to win–for their athletes, coaches and community. How are they doing it?

We interviewed athletic directors from four different programs to find out. No matter the school size, the sports their school offers or the number of teams they serve, the resounding answer was a Hudl athletic department package.

In this blog series, we explore how a Hudl athletic department package is the most accessible and affordable way to level up their department’s ability to serve athletes, coaches and their community throughout the school year.

In the football-crazed state of Texas, Bridge City High School head football coach and athletic director Josh Smalley knows every win matters.

Smalley wears multiple hats as both a head coach and an AD. During the football season, he's juggling game-planning and practice scripts along with his department-wide duties that range from scheduling buses and working with parents. It’s a lot to juggle.

But stacking wins helps. One consistent win–and perk of his school being on a Hudl athletic department package–is the ability to film games and practices with ease using capture tools like the Hudl Focus Outdoor camera.

“My favorite part (about being on a Hudl athletic department package) is having the Focus cameras, and that we’re able to film practices (automatically), instead of a human being needing to do the filming for us,” Smalley explained. “...When I started coaching in 1999, filming practice wasn’t something that happened. And now, you just click a button, set up your practice time and the camera rolls.”

It starts with filming on weekday afternoons, but the impact of Hudl’s capture and performance tools extends far beyond the practice field for Bridge City.

During the week, Smalley and his football staff love the ability to watch film on-demand, as well as create practice scripts and play cards using Hudl. During the games, they rely on the Hudl Focus Outdoor sports camera to capture all the action. After games, the staff saves hours each week with film that’s analyzed automatically with in-depth reports and data tied to video courtesy of Hudl Assist.

The return on investment of Hudl’s capture and sports video analysis tools pays dividends for not only the football team but for the entire school. Many Cardinal sports programs have access to the same Hudl tools as the football team, adding a level of equity with department-wide access to film—giving players across different teams the tools to improve and showcase their skills. The school has even found uses for Hudl outside of sports.

“It’s not just a football thing. Baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, soccer, every sport benefits from it, and every coach benefits from it. You’re reaching more kids the more sports you have,” Smalley says. “...Hudl is great for football and other athletics, but because cameras live (on the field) and in the gym, there might be an academic program that can be filmed or you can film a pep rally. It really benefits the entire school district.”

Making a School-Wide Impact

Over 1,000 miles away from Bridge City, Libertyville High School (Illinois) athletic director John Woods echoes similar sentiments about the power of Hudl’s capture and performance tools, as part of an athletic department package.

Libertyville regularly uses three different Hudl sports cameras, capturing film for sports and activities ranging from football, basketball and lacrosse to badminton, cheer, dance and track and field. Woods enjoys the access to consistent, high-quality film and what it does for his coaches and student-athletes. But his favorite part of being on a Hudl athletic department package? The equal access for everyone at his high school.

“My first thought is about the equity component and making sure that we’re providing what we’re providing to all of our sports and all of our kids and that they have access to the tools other sports have,” Woods said.

Woods is also quick to tout the day-to-day impact an athletic department package, and the tools that come with it, have on his coaches and student-athletes. A former coach himself, Woods remembers the old days of cutting up his own tape and burning DVDs to watch game film. He’s thankful that’s all a thing of the past thanks to Hudl.

“I think about our coaches and how (a Hudl athletic department package) has simplified life for them. I mean, you’ve got video at your fingertips…you’ve got film on opponents and you can just scout them,” he said. “It’s at the fingertips of not just the coaches, but the kids too.”

For St. Louis-based powerhouses De Smet Jesuit High School and St. Louis University High School, an athletic department package has a wide-ranging impact on their entire programs.

SLUH athletic director Chris Muskopf says a department-wide package is a game-changer on three fronts. It saves his coaches valuable time each week, it allows for unique instructional opportunities with access to high-quality film and the access to film opens a lot of recruiting doors for student-athletes.

“It’s the breadth of members of the community that Hudl has the chance to impact that makes an athletic department package a very, very worthwhile investment and return on investment,” Muskopf said.

De Smet Jesuit High School athletic director Harold Barker says being on a school-wide package doesn’t just impact wins or losses. In fact, because of what his coaches and student-athletes can achieve using Hudl tools, that impact stretches far beyond the field or classroom.

“What makes me feel good as an athletic director is I feel like we’re giving (our coaches) a resource they can use to not just help their program in terms of wins and losses but to just help them have a higher quality of life,” he explained. “It gives them more time to be home with their family and showcase their student-athletes in a higher level, elevated way.”

Smalley echoes those same feelings about Hudl and how having access to those capture and performance tools improves his life as a whole.

“(Hudl) is just great for us as husbands and fathers and grandfathers,” he said. “Because we don’t have to be at school 24/7. We can do stuff at home and actually be the people we need to be at home, as well.”