How Athletic Departments Are Modernizing Sports Recognition Displays

Remember walking down the main hallway of your high school? The dark, dusty case adorned with grief of pictures and brass plaques that had not been treated by an industrial cleaner since the late 90s? The smell of ancient floor wax and natural high school memories. Let’s all be frank, even when we find that specific name, team, or whatever in that ocean of dusty objects, it would be like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.

Schools come complete with rich histories and promising futures. Regardless, these days, athletic departments all over the country are running out of walls, plain and simple; the tradition is impractical. Many schools seem to be closing in on the realization that they have too many physical plaques and trophies as it is.

The Problem with Traditional Trophy Cases

While physical trophies lose the glare and brass plaques smear, eventually achievements are necessitated to simply have its boxed-down.[6] It is a painful thought that the school’s historic championship team might just be packed away in a dark closet because there isn’t enough room left in the gym lobby.

Visitors step into our interactive experiences that are ever-changing, where ordinary halls of fame and plaques are now a thing of the past. The move toward digital is more than a space-saving endeavour; it is a matter of self-preservation. The updating of your displays tends to professionalize your image for potential students or other visitors. It is your role to make sure that when the visiting team or that scholar-athlete walks in, they will see state-of-the-art-type technologies.

You look forward to enticing and keeping the best instructors, teachers, and administrators. An old glass case with yesterday’s dust is no longer the status of excellence; it is time we made the school live up to the standard of being set.

Enter the Digital Era of Athletics

Athletic directors are turning to modern solutions to keep history alive and accessible. By utilizing digital record boards, schools can easily update content over time without the need for technical expertise. Touchstone Digital Solutions creates touchscreen software which helps high schools build their digital legacy and tell their story.

Instead of ordering a new expensive physical plaque every time a track record is broken, you just log in and update it. Our cloud-based solution enables schools to easily manage and update their digital legacy through an intuitive content management system. It ensures that your digital legacy remains current, accurate, and visually stunning.

Let’s look at what these interactive platforms actually handle for an athletic department:

• Hall of Fame: Keep every inductee’s story alive forever, rather than just a name on a brick.
  
• Team and Individual Championships: Showcase highlight videos, stats, and team pictures.
  
• Leaderboards and Records: Keep updating current names of breakers of records and top scorers in no time.
  
• College Commitments: Celebrate where your athletes are heading next to inspire younger students.
  

By removing the constraints of traditional wall space, tight budgets, and physical locations, our technology offers limitless possibilities.

Lightning-Fast Access to Your History

Nobody wants to stand in a hallway tapping a screen that takes five minutes to load. At the core of Touchstone’s solution is a high-performance, cloud-based database that delivers lightning-fast access to historical records, photos, and stories all managed through an intuitive content management system. With our state-of-the-art database management system, we bring centuries of school history to life without sacrificing speed.

Whether it’s an interactive touchscreen in a gym lobby or a mobile version on a prospective family’s phone, the experience is always seamless and impactful. You can easily share season schedules and results, tryout information, and even training programs.

Building a Community and Honoring Supporters

Alumni and donors have been playing a significant part in picking up the tab for the perpetuity of school sports programs. Recognizing community contributors as winners is definitely a great idea. People contributing thousands for the new football turf or bleachers for basketball will like to feel recognized by society for their share in financing a project that leaves a lasting legend.

This is why an interactive digital donor wall is becoming just as important as the trophy case. It allows institutions to recognize donors and fundraising campaigns effectively. You can easily include the history of the program, new giving opportunities, and real impact stories.

When you treat your supporters right, they keep coming back. We like to call our clients “proud partners” because it really is a team effort. Showing your proud partners that their support matters builds a legacy that never graduates.

Final Thoughts

The days of investing in expensive hardware soon to be obsolete and software liable to break down, are now gone. Because our displays aren’t limited by wall space or physical location, your school’s story can be accessed from anywhere in the world. It brings an ROI beyond measure to your entire community.

The digital age is offering up some great solutions for the online and remote-planet-dispensing recognition of anyone, anywhere, and for any achievement with just one click.

Is your school still relying on those dusty glass cases, or are you ready to bring your athletic history into the modern age? What piece of your school’s history would you digitize first?