RHS earns nod for excellence in athletic broadcasting

Since 2014 Russellville High School has made a concerted effort to make game days more fun and accessible to the community through the Tiger Vision broadcast team. All of that effort by J.J. McCormick, director of Tiger Vision, and his team has paid off. This year RHS was declared a Select School by the National Federation of High Schools because of Tiger Vision’s exceptional broadcasting.

NFHS designated six Select Schools in the state of Alabama, and McCormick, a 2016 RHS grad, said he was amazed when he realized how prestigious of an honor this was.

“When I first heard about it, I didn’t know it was such a big deal,” he said, “but when I saw we placed with schools like Florence and Muscle Shoals that have incredible broadcast services, I realized how important the recognition is.”

Select Schools are chosen based on the high quality of their broadcast, which McCormick said is mostly based on the number of views their livestream gets. He said it is also based on the amount of money the broadcast raises through sponsorships and the viewers.

“Our progress has been crazy. We started with like seven viewers the first year, and now we’re at around 270,” McCormick said.

According to assistant principal Natalie Bendall, this growth is all thanks to McCormick “taking it under his wing.”

“He has done such an incredible job. The program wouldn’t be what it is without him,” Bendall said.

McCormick, who was hired as a part-time technology assistant after graduating from RHS, said he has always loved working with live video and technology. Dr. AnnaKay Holland, instructor at RHS, recognized his talent and asked him to help with the jumbotron back in his tenth-grade year, then entrusted him with Tiger Vision in 2014, McCormick explained.

“I also helped teachers with the technology in their classrooms and stuff like that around the school,” he said.

Aside from running the Tiger Vision network and continuing to help teachers with instructional technology, McCormick is also a student at the University of North Alabama and volunteers with his church and an organization that provides homework and other help to students.