Off the Field and into the Classroom

Between sharing video, creating highlights and viewing stat breakdowns, Hudl has been helping coaches and athletes improve for the past 10 years.

Now, Hudl’s impact is being felt beyond members of sports teams.

Omaha South High School (Neb.) introduced a new class this fall that will teach students how to use Hudl. Part of the school’s Information science and technology curriculum, the class will educate its 10 students about performance analysis software.

The students will learn how to tag games and provide breakdowns for football, soccer, volleyball and basketball, create highlights and research jobs involved with sports management.

“Do you like sports?” Lucas Hartman, the course’s teacher, said. “Maybe you’re not going to play sports at the college or professional level, but you still might be able to be involved in sports thanks to your knowledge of Hudl.

“You can take that to a business or a college or a professional sports team and say, ‘Hey, I know Hudl. Can I be your data management guy?’ I can see that bridging that gap. Students could come out of high school with some certification of some kind that could help them get a job right away."

Hartman hopes that, once the students become familiar with the terminology and technology, they will be able to assist Omaha South’s coaches and athletes. He envisions them potentially earning internship credits from serving as coaches’ assistants by next year.

For the time being, Hartman is keeping things basic. The class is starting at the ground level, so they spent the first two weeks learning the ins and outs of football and how to tag a game. Some of the concepts were foreign initially, but Hartman was surprised by how quickly the students have picked them up.

“They’re very engaged and excited,”he said. “They’re pretty excited about how easy it is to use, how quick it is. They’re getting faster and faster.”

Though the class is just two weeks old, Hartman can already see that it has a real future. The students will have the ability not only to help their school’s current teams, but also to set themselves up for potential jobs after they graduate. Hartman said he would recommend other schools and districts look into adopting a class like this.

“I would tell them if you want a class that is fun and is a work experience, it’s engaging,” Hartman said. “The students want to be here in class. It’s kind of a fun environment where we’re using technology to help out the school itself. We’re helping the coaches out with the sports.

“Maybe we can even have a partnership where they’re not on the football team but in the class, and football players or basketball players can come up and that person on Hudl can sit there and tell them, ‘Here’s how to filter the plays that you’re in,’ or ‘Here are all your scoring runs.’ They could help them make highlight reels and just improve their game and get some work experience.”

Do you know of any schools doing something similar to this? Or are you interested in starting a class centered around Hudl? For more information, click here.