CHICAGO (IL) –- For those of us unable to be in Chicago over the weekend, one of the highlights of watching the Marquette game online (besides the outcome, obviously) were the antics of “The Clapper.” “The Clapper” was the nickname those of us posting on the Marquette Game Thread on the UDPride MB gave to “MU Basketball” the Golden Eagle fan who was hosting the webcast of the UD/Marquette game on a site called UStream.tv.

Here’s the link to MU Basketball’s page that we all accessed to witness the fun:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/marquette-basketball

Early on in the proceedings, MU Basketball would clap heartily whenever his team did something good. MU interjected a “Boom goes the dynamite” when it appeared the Golden Eagles were staging a comeback. He also played the MU fight song during commercial breaks and broke out some other tunes at halftime. As the evening wore on, he had less and less to clap about. When UD opened up an 18 point lead and Marquette took a TO, there was silence and then a despondent plea of “I got nothing…nothing.” At the end of the game MU cranked up the tune “Loser.”

At one point there were something like 384 users accessing MU Basketball’s video feed and I would venture to guess that a majority of them, like the crowd at the Sears Center, were UD fans. I have no way of thanking him directly, so here’s to you, “Mr. Broadcast on a Shoestring Budget Internet Basketball Video Feed Guy.” See Bucky for your Bud Light.

Anyway, here’s where the title of this rambling dissertation — “Audience Participation” — comes in. During the OOC portion of UD’s schedule most of the games are available for free from CSTV. Not so the A-10 games. Out-of-town Flyer fans like yours truly and the Newly-Minted Attorney Elder Swampette (NMAES) are resigned to the audio-only dulcet tones of Larry and Bucky. Not that it’s a bad thing, but just imagine how crazed we all would have been if we had to listen to L&B rave about CW’s monster jam vs. Marquette and not had MU B-ball’s video feed to witness “The Dunk” in all its glory live. That woulda sucked big-time, dontcha think?

What we need here kids, is a volunteer. Who wants to step up and provide a simple-to-do video feed for your Flyer brethren and sistern when the boys are on the tube locally but not on the intrawebs? How hard is it? Well, MU pulled it off and trust me, he didn’t exactly sound like Stephen Hawking at the other end of the video camera.

According to the UStream.tv web site, here is what you’ll have to do to “create your own broadcast! It takes just minutes”:

— Create your UStream.tv account

— Plug in your cam

— Log in, then select “My Shows”

— Type in the name of your show and then click “Broadcast Now”

— When asked “Allow” the broadcast widget to access your video camera or webcam

— Click “Start Broadcast” in the console. You are now live.

Here is a link to the instructions: http://www.ustream.tv/get-started

How hard can that be, I ask you? Basically, it appears to be SlingBox for the masses, doesn’t it?

Here’s some background on these guys:

http://www.ustream.tv/about

I never ask for anything from youse guys, but now I’m beggin’ ya: somebody please step up to the plate and volunteer to provide this invaluable service to Flyer Faithful from around the globe.

Pretty please!

I’ll even buy you a cheese steak at the Sub House next time I’m in Dayton.

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: [email protected]