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Inside Furman is published monthly during the school year by the Furman University Department of Marketing and Public Relations. For story ideas, e-mail John Roberts, editor.
Bookmark it: FurmanPaladins.com
After four months of preparation and design, the Furman Athletic Department has debuted its new Web page: FurmanPaladins.com.
The site bears little resemblance to its predecessor. In addition to scores and updates, FurmanPaladins.com features an overview of alumni playing professional sports, on-line ticket sales, banner advertising by sponsors, an athletics calendar and information about the Paladin Club.
"While the former site was very functional, FurmanPaladins.com has a more contemporary look. It is visually appealing and focused more on sports marketing," says Athletic Director Gary Clark. "It also gives our fans and alumni more opportunities to interact with our coaches and players."
Clark says FurmanPaladins.com will include fan polls and live chats with players and coaches.
Paul Leese, a Furman senior, worked with Jake Breeden, Web development director, and Hunter Reid, sports information director, to develop the site. Leese examined hundreds of athletic home pages before arriving at a design.
"I really liked the design of Skysports.com and the completeness of the University of Georgia athletics home page," says Leese, a former Paladin soccer player. "I tried to incorporate some of these elements in our page."
FurmanPaladins.com is housed on an outside server and the Athletic Department will continue to update the site with sports information.
When needed, Marketing and Public Relations will work with Athletics to add news functions, graphics and photos. Leese says both the old and new pages will remain posted throughout much of the summer as he refines the site and seeks input. The old site will be phased out before football season begins in early September.
"Traffic on the site will increase to more than 1,000 visitors a day during football season, so we will have all the kinks worked out by then," says Leese. "We hope the new design excites our fans."