SCREENSHOT TAKEN BY JACQUELINE WALLACE/THE RIDER
Karina Rodriguez| THE RIDER
UTRGV Athletics created a YouTube series titled “Road to Victory” on Nov. 19, 2020 to showcase the different programs and how they are managing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Deputy Director of Athletics Vince Volpe said the “Road to Victory” series was created to promote the brand.
“We wanted to bring our brand [and] continue to deliver our brand to the fans, our alums [and] our students all throughout the Rio Grande Valley in a unique way,” Volpe said. “So that was one approach. Then, secondly, we have dozens of corporate partners that have attached their brand to our brand, and we needed to co-brand some content.”
He also said a major hope he had with the release of the series is to help gain support for UTRGV Athletics from the community.
“The third piece of the puzzle is probably continuing to ‘Rally the Valley’ from a community-unifying standpoint,” Volpe said.
The series currently has two episodes which feature the UTRGV Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams
Athletics Video Production Coordinator Davis Van Egdom explained some of the challenges with producing the series.
“Some of the best parts of the series [are those] really close personal looks into the athletes’ lives,” Van Egdom said. “We couldn’t do a lot of that, like, we couldn’t go into their dorms, we couldn’t follow them to the classrooms because, in reality, they kind of went straight from their dorms to the Fieldhouse. Then they came right back to the dorms. So, I had to show off the personal side, when they all really couldn’t do too much, [which] was difficult.
While producing the series, he said they followed social distancing guidelines.
“For the interviews, as you see, those are usually recorded on a zoom lens, so we can zoom in pretty tight,” Van Egdom said. “So, while it may look like we’re pretty close to the athletes, they’re actually usually 12 to 15 feet away from us. … We [also] have some additional PPE … we wear gloves … masks, face shields and just being really cautious when it is unavoidable to be at least 6 feet apart.”
UTRGV Women’s Basketball Coach Lane Lord said he hopes the community will learn more about the athletes and cheer on UTRGV Athletics.
“Our rallying cry here in Athletics is to ‘Rally the Valley,’” Lord said. “So, it’s up everywhere. We want everybody to know they have a Division 1 school right here in the Valley. We represent all our teams [and] represent not only this university but our community. We play for the people in the Valley, and, you know, as we continue to grow as an athletic department, we start winning championships and we get to go to the NCAA tournament.”
He said that he is happy that the hard work the athletes put in outside of athletics is showcased in the series.
“Besides their academics, you know, the 20 plus hours a week on the basketball floor [and] studying film, you know, it’s a full-time job to be a student athlete and maintain their studies,” Lord said.
Volpe said that people can look forward to seeing baseball highlighted in upcoming episodes of the series.
“Episode three, which will come out either later this month or early February, will actually now start to weave in baseball,” he said. “We’re going to plan to continue all the way through whatever postseason run all three programs go to.”
To view the first two episodes of the “Road to Victory” series, visit the UTRGV Athletics’ YouTube channel, GoUTRGV.
SCREENSHOT TAKEN BY JACQUELINE WALLACE/THE RIDER
