From left to right, Mason Gray, Rhett Coblentz and Ryan Lockhart are some of the Wawasee students that will help Warrior Radio/TV broadcast games this school year. (Photo by Nick Goralczyk)

SYRACUSE – Since Warrior Radio 93.7 launched in December of 2014, it has been giving the Wawasee community great music right from the halls of Wawasee High School. But this school year the station will step up its game for its listeners by, well, bringing the game to listeners.

Starting August 21 WRWT will broadcast all home games for Wawasee’s football, girls basketball and boys basketball teams. The games will aim to be 100-percent operated by students helping them to get a hands-on experience in the career field. While the current goal is to be there for the action of all the home games for those three sports, it’s also on the radar to pick up some other events throughout the year.

But why stop there?

Wawasee has gone to great lengths to completely redo the old TV studio on campus in order to have it be a Radio/TV studio and though the radio station has been getting most of the attention recently, students interested in the TV/production side of the field are going to have more exposure this coming year as well.

Wawasee has teamed with www.NFHSnetwork.com to bring live streaming video to its fans starting this fall as well. Fans wanting to watch games live can get a subscription to the site. Subscriptions are done by season or by year. If catching the live feed is not paramount for fans, all events put on the site are available within three to four days for free. Some events were already filmed and streamed to the Wawasee page on the NFHS site. Those interested can go there and currently watch the 2015 Pop Show, the honors night and graduation ceremonies as well as the band and orchestra concert from this past spring.

Phil Huffman and Jeremy Van Lue are the instructors for the radio and TV courses and have enjoyed watching the program blossom into something very exciting.

“We’re kind of reapplying things that these kids have been taught over the years,” Van Lue stated. “We had a few kids last year that were struggling in there other classes and you have to maintain a certain GPA to be in this course. Wanting to be here and doing the work here helped those kids get their grades up and keep them up.

“Is it anything Phil or myself are doing? No. But it’s what the program does. It’s how it reteaches them core school skills and reapplies things they’ve been taught before. Writing a complete sentence, speaking clearly and there’s a lot more than that. So, this program is not just about which button to press, it’s also helping in other areas.”

Van Lue and Huffman had students come in this week and listen to a guest speaker in a “Sports Broadcasting 101” type of seminar to get their feet wet for the coming season.

Wawasee is the only area high school to actually own a radio station, giving its students in the program an amazing jump into the field.

“Not only in this program, but in any of the career tech programs here,” began Van Lue, “what a wonderful opportunity these kids are getting. There was a little bit of it when I went here, but it’s just so different now. They can pick up a skill in the field of their choice in high school and have a head start before they even get to college.

“The radio/TV business might not even be the one that these kids go into after high school but there are so many fingers off of this field that they can go into. I think it’s just an unbelievable opportunity for them to pick up some skills in this field and hopefully turn it into an internship or job after high school.”