Roadrunners expand their web experience

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Matt Hamilton/The Daily Citizen Dalton State athletic director Derek Waugh, middle, tastes a variety of soups at the Dalton Depot with the school's mascot and T.J. Kaikobad earlier this year. The group were out to choose a Roadrunner-themed soup from a variety of recipes.

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July 7, 2012

Roadrunners expand their web experience

By Devin Golden devingolden@daltoncitizen.com The Dalton Daily Citizen Sat Jul 07, 2012, 06:15 AM EDT

When Dalton State College last fielded a men’s basketball team, the phrase “social media” was Greek to everyone.

Times sure have changed.

Athletic department officials announced plans to launch a Facebook page and Twitter page as part of its steady progress toward bringing sports back to the institution.

“We have started the Facebook, but we have not launched it yet,” said Richard Skeel, the new senior associate athletic director. “We’ve had to sit down with our communications and marketing, and they’ve had some policies on what can be on it and not.”

Skeel said the overall design of the page is complete and there are example articles in place. He expects “something to go up next week.”

“We want to get a following as students start coming back (for the fall semester),” Skeel said.

Skeel said he has an intern who will oversee the page, and it will serve as a way to pose questions and keep fans up to date on what’s to come. Dalton State plans to compete in NAIA in a handful of sports, including men’s basketball, beginning in the 2013-2014 school year. It has been 34 years since then-called Dalton Junior College shut down its men’s basketball program.

“Hopefully this is a precursor to teasers to what will come throughout the summer,” he said. “Any tidbit of news, getting people talking about basketball and all sports and tell them about the sports we want to do this year. Pose questions about who would come to the trade center to watch basketball or who would like an on-campus soccer facility.

“I’ve also got (the intern) working on Twitter so we have a following on that.”

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter became popular in the last few years. Derek Waugh, the school’s athletic director, believes Dalton State needs to be immersed in social media.

“As we get things started, being the year 2012, we want to make sure we want to take advantage of all the cutting-edge technology out there,” Waugh said. “We want to develop a fan base that spans all age groups.”

Skeel, the second hire in the athletic department, started his post July 1. Waugh became the Roadrunners’ athletic director in February. Their goals for the summer include building social media pages, hiring a new men’s basketball coach and launching a new website for the athletic department.

“You can go to the Dalton State site and hit athletics and it will go to our site. It will be a little more interactive,” Skeel said, noting its arrival to fans is a bit more down the road.

“We won’t launch that until probably October. Of course by then we’ll have our basketball coach and hopefully more coaches to announce and we’ll start launching actual pages even if it’s just the coaches’ (biographies).”

As for the basketball coach search, Waugh did not have much update, simply saying, “it is ongoing.” After originally targeting July 1, Waugh said a hire probably wouldn’t come until later in the month. He previously said he wants to get someone in as soon as possible for recruiting purposes.

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