Athletics

Athletics

Journalism and Broadcasting

At Northeast Mississippi Community College, making sure that students are ready for the workforce is paramount and that even goes for its extracurricular activities.

For those looking at a job in journalism or sports broadcasting, Northeast offers a chance to work with its NEMCCTV broadcasting crew to get a hands-on education about everything that goes into producing an award-winning broadcast. Northeast’s NEMCCTV crew consists of Sports Information Director Blake Long, Sports Information Specialist Ryan Moreland and play-by-play and color analysts Carter Smith and Jody Presley along with a variety of students from the Magnolia State and around the southeast.

NEMCCTV employs students from all over to help with the broadcast from those in the college’s five-county service area of Alcorn, Prentiss, Tippah, Tishomingo and Union to all parts of the southeastern United States. Members of this year’s staff come from as far away as Decatur, Alabama, and Laurel, Mississippi, but those who want to be in the business are willing to leave their home schools to come to Northeast and get hands-on education in what they love.

Those involved with NEMCCTV also get a chance to work on other projects than athletics such as graduations, Campus Country events, beauty reviews and even guest lecture speakers, who come to the college campus. With iPad in hand, students manage the play-by-play, producing, and camera work in games that do not involve Northeast.

For students interested in a broadcast career or being a member of the NEMCCTV broadcast crew, they should contact Northeast Sports Information Director Blake Long at bdlong@nemcc.edu or Sports Information Specialist Ryan Moreland at mrmoreland@nemcc.edu

With the up-to-date technology experience they receive at NE, a vast majority moved on to finish their degrees at the four-year level and begin successful professional careers.                                                                                                                                    Blake Long, Sports Information Director

Technology and Baseball

Northeast’s baseball team has fully embraced technology as a way of not only competing for a state, region, and national championship, but as a way to help promote its athletes to four-year colleges/universities. Thanks to technology, Northeast’s baseball team has had multiple Division I signees, numerous Division II, Division III and NAIA players and even had one player considered for the top three rounds of the Major League Baseball Amateur baseball draft. 

Rapsodo

Northeast has partnered with Rapsodo to give its players more metrics than ever before. Rapsodo is a digital

tool that bluetooths to the iPad and allows athletes to see things such as the spin rate of certain pitches (high or low and the amount of rotations that a pitch would complete), speed, direction and many more options to assessing the performance of a pitcher. Rapsodo also keeps up with hit count, pitch count, the pitch speed and the location in and around the strike zone so that coaches and athletes may make minute adjustments to give themselves an advantage over the competition. At the plate, batters have come to rely on Rapsodo to understand the power matrix of launch angle and exit velocity to produce a power and timely hit when the time is right. 

Synergy

In addition to Rapsodo, Northeast began its second year in the Synergy system. Synergy allows coaches and athletes to break down performances like never before. All 32 Major League Baseball (MLB) teams use Synergy as well as a major of the Division I baseball teams in the college ranks, so it was a no-brainer for Northeast head baseball coach Richy Harrelson to bring the equipment to the Tiger baseball team. Northeast now records its games from a multitude of angles including center field so that coaches and players are able to break down the game to the minute detail. 

For someone wanting to see how a certain hitter is doing against fastballs, the system has it. For someone wanting to know how a batter does when facing a 3-2 count, the system has that as well. The system even allows athletes to go in on their iPad and cut their own highlight tapes and send them to four-year colleges and universities. Synergy breaks down each pitch, each at bat and even each player allowing for easy access to those who need the information at a moment’s notice. 

TikTok

Northeast’s baseball team (@nemccbaseball), joined the TikTok platform in April 2020 – at the height of the global pandemic, has used the application to show off not only the Tiger baseball program but provides workouts and

lessons to a wide range of viewers. “It’s a great avenue for helping people and potential recruits get a look at our program,” said Northeast head baseball coach Richy Harrelson. “Normally, they would not be able to see our day-to-day activities and facilities.”

In just over 18 months, Northeast baseball program has turned a fledgling account into one of the top athletic accounts in north Mississippi with the program posting 73 videos (about once a week) and drawing in over 1 million views to its videos. Each one of the views is free advertisement for the program, the college’s new baseball/softball complex and the college itself. “Being able to reach over 1 million views is outstanding,” said Harrelson. “We are able to reach people we normally wouldn't’t reach and with one of the best facilities for baseball and softball in the nation; it’s a way to show off just who we are.”