Focus Hudl TV Capture Culture

How Aliquippa Turned Fan Demand into a Community Funded Scholarship Program

Feb 18, 2026

5 min Read

By Caleb Bacon

With Hudl livestreaming and ticketing, Aliquippa High School transformed community support into long-term student opportunities.

Athletics are in Dr. Jennifer Damico’s blood. The daughter of a 35-year high school football coach, she grew up on Friday night lights and carried that foundation into a career in education.

In 2022, she became the first female athletic director at Pennsylvania’s Aliquippa High School, located in a town of about 10,000 residents outside of Pittsburgh. It’s the kind of place where athletics aren’t extracurricular, but foundational.

“A lot of our kids participate in sports,” Damico said. “It's a way of life here. It's the expectation here.”

Damico joined the Educational AD Podcast, hosted by longtime AD Jake von Scherrer, to share Aliquippa’s story.

Turning Demand into Access with Hudl

Damico immediately learned the importance the Quips held to the community in her first year on the job. “ My first year as AD, we were rebuilding our stadium. So we played every game on the road,” she explained.

“People would be angry because the stadiums we were playing in were smaller, and we had to cap our number of people who could get in. It just opened my eyes to how many people were following the Quips. People were coming from all over to watch them play.”

Once their new stadium was finished, the first order of business was setting up a Hudl Focus camera. This was in part to capitalize on all the fan interest Damico had seen the year before. “A lot of alumni don't stay in Aliquippa, but they still want to stay engaged,” she explained. “So that first year was just discovering how big of an audience we could potentially have.”

The goal of engaging that widespread audience led them to livestream all their events. “There are a lot of changes that have happened in the district in the past five years in a positive way,” Damico said. “So we’re very much trying to get that out there to the public.”

With Hudl Focus cameras installed in both the gym and stadium, sharing games with the community felt like a natural next step. Before Hudl, some fans would go live on Facebook—a method Damico describes as “messy” and “hard to watch.” Now, their Hudl livestream delivers a cleaner viewing experience, with steady, automated tracking that follows the action. They’ve also introduced a pay-per-view option, turning big matchups into revenue-generating opportunities that help fund their program. It’s been such a success that they’ve doubled down on the Hudl Fan experience.

“Because we had such a high following on our Hudl streaming, we then decided to use them for ticketing. This year was our first year with Hudl Tickets. We had used a different online ticketing platform the first two years,” said Damico.

“Matched with the streaming, it's like a one-stop shop for everything.”

If I had to go back and do anything differently, I would’ve done Hudl Tickets first. I wouldn’t have tried anybody else. Dr. Jennifer Damico, Athletic Director, Aliquippa High School

Showcasing Skills Beyond Sports

Damico is constantly focused on impact beyond game night.

Winning has never been the issue at Aliquippa. In her four years as AD, the football team has won multiple WPIAL championships and made deep state playoff runs. Basketball has done the same.

But for Damico, banners are nice, but they aren’t the finish line.

“To me, we’re not winning if once they leave us, they don’t have a plan, they don't have a future. All the winning on the field doesn’t matter if they leave our high school with their diploma, [and] that’s it.”

That belief led her to launch a scholarship program, designed to shift the community’s focus from on-field successes to long-term futures. It’s partly funded by the Ticketing Payback Program, a Hudl Tickets rebate open to all users that pays schools money back for every ticket sold.

“We wanted the community that supports them on Friday nights to invest in them not just on Friday night, but long term,” Damico explained. “These are young men and women. They’re not just for your entertainment. They’re students. They’re going to leave us, and they need a future.”

Last year’s scholarship recipients both held GPAs above 3.5 and ranked in the top 20% of their class. They’re not necessarily all-state stars or full-ride recruits, but always leaders on their teams.

“We have a ton of great athletes here,” Damico said. “But this scholarship is to recognize that kid where maybe sports isn’t their one way out. We look at a lot of characteristics when we pick them.”

Increasingly, Hudl has helped Aliquippa tell that fuller story.

“We are known for our sports here,” she said. “Hudl is the way to bring the community into the school without physically bringing them into the school.”

What started as football and basketball livestreams to reach a passionate fanbase has expanded into something much broader. Aliquippa now streams graduation ceremonies, award banquets, elementary school parades and more. National Signing Day events in February. Senior recognition ceremonies in May. Academic celebrations along with their athletic ones.

“It’s not just sports,” Damico said. “Our kids have so many skills that we didn’t know how to showcase prior to being able to stream everything. Hudl has really allowed us to bring in the community and the alumni from all over and for them to see all the things that our kids are doing that are not just sport-related.”

The Only Thing She’d Change

For an athletic director who admits she’s “not a tech person,” the experience has been refreshingly simple.

“The Hudl team, they’re angels,” Damico said. “I’ve touched computers before and they break. But their support team has just been tremendous. They answer the phone. We haven’t had any major hiccups.”

In fact, there’s only one thing she’d change.

“If I had to go back and do anything differently, I would’ve done Hudl Tickets first. I wouldn’t have tried anybody else.”

At Aliquippa, athletics may be foundational. But under Damico’s leadership, they’re also a platform—for education, opportunity and telling a bigger story.

Listen to the full episode.