Wes PreGame, a new student-run webcast created by Lionel Nyange ’12 and Michael Yoshida ’13, highlights achievements of student athletes on and off the field. With funding from Instructional Media Services (IMS), co-founders Nyagne and Yoshida, along with six other students, interview athletes and coaches before games.
Yoshida said the idea for the webcast began as a joke.
“I was on the football team for two years, and before one of our home games I was joking with Lionel that I was going in for my pre-game press conference,” he said. “It was a small idea and it sparked.”
The two began making plans for the webcast over a year ago.
“We [were] sitting on this great idea, and our boss [from IMS] loved it,” Nyange said.
Nyange and Yoshida did not want to limit discussion on the webcast to sports coverage; the webcast will include segments on topics such as life as a student athlete at Wesleyan. The two also plan to produce segments on other components of sports games such as pep bands.
“We’re trying to make it not just a sports show, but a show highlighting all of Wesleyan: its uniqueness and its greatness as an institution,” Nyange said.
According to Nyange, the webcast is not only for students, but for anyone who may not be able to attend every sports game. Nyange and Yoshida explained that they have received a lot of positive feedback from athletes, parents, and alumni.
“I’m a big fan of Wes Pregame,” football team member Te’Rhon O’Neal ’13 wrote in an e-mail to The Argus. “It’s a great way to give Wesleyan athletics new exposure that we have never had before. It also provides some true insight to how dedicated all of the athletes are to their programs.”
Nyange and Yoshida hope that the concept of Wes PreGame will catch on at other Division III colleges.
“Other NESCAC [New England Small Colleges Athletic Conference] schools just don’t have pregame or halftime shows that compare,” Yoshida said.
For Homecoming this weekend, Wes PreGame will be running a longer show that will include conversations with alumni and previews of winter sports. To view this and all episodes, or for more information, visit http://wescast.wesleyan.edu/pregame.html.