By Chris Brown
Students and staff around U of L’s Belknap campus will have another source of college sports information when Sports Illustrated On Campus hits stands in the Swain Student Activities Center Thursday.
The specialty magazine, from the publishers of the original Sports Illustrated, focuses solely on college sports around the country.
“Our reporters are looking for cool things going on with sports at different schools,” said Allison Keane, Sports Illustrated spokewoman.
Keane said that SI On Campus, unlike many traditional sports publications, will offer its readers in-depth features about athletes and sports-related events, not just typical game recaps.
There will be six issues per semester. The first issue for this school year will feature a special promotional cover to introduce new readers to the magazine, and is expected to highlight some of the Cardinals’ rising football stars.
The three-year-old magazine is expanding its distribution this year to a total of 150 schools across the country to include more than 75 new colleges. U of L is among those on the list, and will receive 6,500 copies of the magazine for each of the six issues. The magazines will be free of charge.
The debut of the magazine at the new schools will be accompanied by the launch of a new Web site, http://www.sioncampus.com, which will keep visitors abreast of the latest college sports news. “The Web site will be updated daily,” Keane said. She also said that the online version of the magazine may offer opportunities for student reporters to file columns.
Keane feels confident that the magazine will be well-received by readers. “Whether [you’re] a sports fan or not, this is a good magazine for everyone,” she said.
