Company launches hologram to protect licensed products

Collegiate Images (CI), a media rights clearinghouse for collegiate sports video, recently launched a new strategy aimed at combating video piracy.

CI rolled introduced a holographic logo earlier this year that will be digitally imprinted on products and product packaging in an effort to protect its member colleges, universities, athletics conferences, bowl games, broadcast networks and licensees from potential future financial losses related to piracy. The hard-to-duplicate hologram will appear on home videos, DVDs, computer games and other products containing licensed collegiate still and moving images.

"The Collegiate Images hologram on collegiate media product will serve as the mark of credibility and retail authenticity," said Mark Geddis, president and chief executive officer of Collegiate Images. "With the officially licensed seal on the back of the packaging and the hologram on the front, consumers can rest assured that they are getting a superior product that stands out in the marketplace, while retailers can rest comfortably with the knowledge that potential copyright and trademark infringement issues have been addressed."

In addition to the holographic image, each new product features a serial number that allows the company to track its origin.

Warner Home Video, which is producing a series of collegiate DVDs to be released this year, and The Computer Group, which primarily produces and distributes full-game, original network broadcasts of championships games, will be the first companies to use the new image.

Seminoles make film debut in the name of compliance

Administrators and student-athletes at Florida State University have devised an innovative and entertaining approach to compliance education by creating a video using student-athlete actors to deliver the message. The project involved a collaboration among student-athletes, the university's college of communications and various athletics staff. Athletics department staff helped write, produce and provide props for the six-minute video; student-athletes were cast as the actors; and the college of communications filmed, edited, and produced the final product.

The short video delivers compliance education in a fun and entertaining method -- staging various and sometimes humorous situations to illustrate a compliance point -- and the design of the video allows for audience interaction. There are several vignettes, after each of which a narrator cites the appropriate bylaws relevant to the topic. Topics include student-athlete benefits and employment.

"The audiences who have viewed the film, including our student-athletes, boosters, staff and fans, yelled out the answers to the questions asked and laughed at the props and 'over-the-top' compliance illustrations, and they enjoyed seeing our student-athletes in another forum," said Bob Minnix, Florida State's associate athletics director for compliance.

The video is available in either DVD or VHS format to Florida State booster clubs around the country. Minnix said the school also is exploring the idea of having the video on the Florida State athletics Web site and on its boosters Web site.

Wayne State athletes create a life-long team

Wayne State College (Nebraska) student-athlete Troy Malone arrived on campus seeking a good education and the chance to play basketball.

The senior found that and much more.

Troy also found a wife -- the former Kim Hefner, who happened to be a member of the Wayne State women's basketball team.

Troy and Kim met as freshmen and began dating in their sophomore year.

The two student-athletes were married last June 26 in Bighorn, Wyoming, in front of family, friends and a good portion of the Wildcats' men's and women's basketball teams, coaches and even former players.

Dubbed the mom and dad of the squads by their teammates, the Malones have successfully juggled the demands of married life and academic obligations, as well as their playing and practice schedules. In fact, the couple used the long bus trips associated with travel during conference play as a chance to spend time together.

A biology major, Kim, who changed her uniform number to 22 this season to match her husband's, was the only senior on the women's team this season and closed her career with appearances in 102 games, including 46 starts. She plans to attend medical school. Troy, a health and physical education major who will begin student teaching in the fall, started 12 games this season and appeared in 95 contests for his career.

-- Compiled by Leilana McKindra

Number crunching

Looking back

Here's what was making NCAA news in March 1990:

• Commissioners of eight Division I conferences recommend a set of proposals for reform in intercollegiate athletics. The proposals include a limit of 25 initial counters in football and reductions in overall counters from 92 beginning in 1992 to 85 by 1994; elimination of athletics dormitories; playing-season reductions to 22 weeks for team sports other than football and basketball and 24 weeks (or any 144 days) for individual sports; and maximum-contest reductions in baseball (70 games to 56), ice hockey (38 to 34) and lacrosse (19 to 17).

• An ad hoc committee on athletics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, proposes national and institutional reforms as well, saying that North Carolina should adopt them within five years even if the Atlantic Coast Conference and the NCAA do not. Recommendations for national reform include playing-season reductions, elimination of spring football and reducing eligibility to three years. Institutional recommendations include an option for schools to withdraw from intercollegiate athletics competition, though the report admits such a move "is likely to shake the foundations of the Republic." However, the committee says it would regard such a withdrawal as a serious alternative to "the present state of things."

• Duke, Arkansas, Georgia Tech and UNLV advance to the Men's Final Four in Denver, while Louisiana Tech, Auburn, Virginia and Stanford are the teams involved in the Women's Final Four in Knoxville, Tennessee. Division I Men's Basketball Committee Chair Jim Delany says his group has told game officials and coaches that game-conduct regulations pertaining to sideline behavior, fighting and postgame criticism of officials will be strictly enforced.

• Texas wins both the Division I Men's and Women's Swimming and Diving Championships. The women's team overcomes Stanford in the team standings in the meet's next to last event -- platform diving -- and then defeats the Cardinal in the 400-yard freestyle relay to give Texas coach Mark Schubert his first NCAA title. The Longhorns men's victory is their third straight and fourth overall under coach Eddie Reese's reign, capped by wins in four of the five relay events.