Personalizing women's basketball

The Stanford and Cal women's basketball programs have taken new approaches this season to sell their team to prospective recruits and ticket-buying fans. Their goal is to establish a connection to the athletes by personalizing them.

Cal is doing this with photographs by Mollie McClure that shows the players' competitive intensity as well as their softer side as individuals, teammates and friends.

Stanford's approach is videos by Bud Anderson that showcase the personality and passion of the Cardinal players.

Michelle Smith (San Francisco Chronicle) writes about these programs here ...

The Cal photographs appear in the "So Berkeley" feature of the Cal women's basketball page and in their media guide. Here is a sample:

The Stanford videos are on YouTube. This is an image from a recent one in which Ashley, Hannah and Jeanette promote next weekend's games against Oregon and Oregon State:

You can view the videos from:

• The Stanford women's basketball page — click on "Videos on YouTube" below the page heading.
• The FBC website home page — click the play arrow in the video image to the left of "Stories of the Season".

The videos are arranged so that each advances automatically to the next one in a playlist. As you look at them, you can skip to the next one or the prior one by clicking the arrow on the right or left side of the "screen". That's convenient if you want to look at the few most recent videos, but not if you want to find an old favorite (there are currently 85 videos in the playlist). The easiest way to do that is to look at the playlist itself and select the video you want to see. The link to the playlist is also just below the video image on the FBC website home page.

Here are several of my most recent favorites:

Ashley, Hannah and Jeanette promote next weekend's games against Oregon and Oregon State.   >Play

Highlights of the Stanford/Cal game, featuring Lindy's hustle play of the season.   >Play

Stanford/Cal postgame press conference in which Lindy describes her hustle play.   >Play

Michelle sings the national anthem with Hookslide at a men's basketball game.   >Play