Eastern’s Lantz Arena has something rare for schools in the Ohio Valley Conference and even schools in Illinois — a state-of-the-art video board system.

“Not many schools our size have state-of-the-art equipment,” said Dave Kidwell, director of sports information and marketing. “We have instant replay, cartoons and advertisements. It is a unique experience to have when people come to Eastern that they are not expecting.”

The video board system, purchased from the Daktronic Company, was installed during the fall of 2001. Daktronic is a scoreboard company based in Brookings, S.D. They have produced scoreboards all around the world and have even made the scoreboards for some Olympic events.

Kidwell said Eastern chose Daktronic partially because they are well respected and internationally known. He also said Eastern chose the company because it doesn’t only sell the scoreboard, but their marketing staff also helped raise money for the boards.

“Daktronic was the total package we were looking for,” Kidwell said.

Daktronic’s marketing team along with Rich McDuffie, director of athletics, John Smith, assistant athletic director for development, and others raised money for Eastern to purchase the system.

After Eastern installed the system, it needed someone to help run it during games.

Two local community members help to fascinate crowds with computer and video technology during home events at Lantz.

Local residents Ken Tylman and Wilburn Hutson control the video screens at every game. Hutson and Tylman own and run the local company Vidpro.

This is their second year of running the cameras and video board for Eastern athletics.

Hutson is the technical designer and is in control of directing the images shown on the video board. He also designs all the animated graphics fans see.

Hutson designed the growling panther appearing on the screen during games, and he has been working on making an image of Kidwell growling. He also designed the graphics for all the men and women players’ pictures and stats.

Tylman runs the filming side of the system. Along with local volunteers, Tylman records the game with cameras in various places in Lantz. Tylman said they have three television cameras going all the

time. One is covering the game at all times. The second is the fan cam covering the fans and the third is in the press box covering everything.

One of the newest additions to the video system is a wireless camera capable of operating anywhere in Lantz.

“We got it so the cameramen could get around the gym to cover more people instead of being connected to a wire,” Tylman said. “We are happy with it.”

Tylman directs all the action including when to cue images and when or what the cameramen shoot during the game.

Tylman said fans should always look at the screens for replays.

“Fans should bring more signs especially on the east side of the gym, and we will show them,” he said. “We promise to put them on the screen.”

Tylman said everything seems to be running smoothly.

“We are the experts at it and we are both members of the Panther Club and we want to be actively involved,” Tylman said.

Kidwell said the athletic department oversees the direction of the video boards to make sure certain advertisements are played to honor contracts with corporate sponsors.

Kidwell said there are three different types of commercials they play on screen. The first one is a 15-second audio commercials. The second type is the full screen logo commercials which are also called static. The final type is the “Super bug,” made up of small logos super imposed on the corner of the screen during live action.

They also have a way of scrolling out the commercials and they roll by on screen.

Kidwell said they can pretty much do whatever they want after they honor their commitments to their sponsors. Last year, they did a promotion called “kiss your sweetheart,” to get fans more involved. Kidwell said the fans seemed to enjoy it.

His outlook is to have some fun with the video camera and not offend anyone. He wants to get everyone involved so they focus on all ages, and not just college students.

Kidwell said an example was at the Housing and Dining Night at last Saturday’s game. The Housing and Dining Staff were honored, and their kids were able to get up on the screen.

“The kids love it,” he said.