April 19, 2022
By: Dwayne Page
Tiger Pride will be reaching new heights this fall as DCHS unveils a brand-new video display board at the Dr. John L. Vanhoosier football stadium in time for the 2022 season which also happens to be the 60th year of Tiger football.
Tiger Coach Steve Trapp said the board is 16 x 10 feet and will be incorporated with the existing scoreboard. It will feature opportunities for video replays of game highlights and statistics, advertising sponsorships, and interaction for the fans, all to enhance the game night experience.
“It started five years ago when we got a new scoreboard and shortly after that I began wondering what it would take to get a video board at the football field,” said Coach Trapp.
“At that time we were under five year advertising contracts for the scoreboard but after those contracts came back up we started looking into what it would take to get a video board included with what we already have. I got some prices and got together with a group of people and came up with an ad campaign to raise money to get this thing paid for up front and then after four or five days we had enough funds to purchase a video board so this coming next season it will be incorporated with our scoreboard,” Coach Trapp continued.
“The video board is basically a big monitor and comes with its own computer and software and anything we play on that computer can be shown on the screen and while our current scoreboard will still be used the video board will be contained in that which will offer more advertising opportunities with panels around it,” said Coach Trapp.
The video board will also be used to get the crowd more into the game during certain situations. “We always play those bells on third down and now in addition to hearing those bells we will have something visually, animated or whatever that says things like its third down, get loud for the crowd to respond to,” he said.
“It will also be a way to recognize our sponsors more including a lot of our in-game sponsors like for first downs, touchdowns, and things like that. Not only do we want to hear those things but we also want to see something visually incorporated with it,” said Trapp
“When the kids make a big play or score, we want to have a video of them smiling or celebrating to add more excitement for the families of the players and fans. We want it to be interactive. We don’t want to use it just to display ads. We are going to use it for that but we want it for other things as well,” Coach Trapp said.
Plans are for installation of the video board to begin on May 2 with hopes of it being ready to use during the first pre-season scrimmage on May 6 and perhaps even to show some live shots during the high school graduation on May 13.
Coach Trapp said once its up and running the video board will also be used to promote other local sports programs like Junior Pro Football. “The Jr Pro program will be allowed to use the video board during their games on Saturdays and if they can get us a few video clips of their games we would like to make a highlight tape of them and play it on Fridays just to promote them,” he said