Category: Recent Work

Some of the recent work done by James H. Williams

Summer shake-up: Coaching changes at Long Beach State

The summer has been a busy time for the Long Beach State athletic department. With four notable coaching hires over the last four months.

The first of the four hires started with Andy Fee coming in as the Athletic Director after he was officially announced to the position on April 20.

Fee spend the last seven years working for the UC Santa Barbara athletic department serving under titles such as the Deputy Athletics Director. He also worked at the University of San Diego.

The first coaching hire under Fee’s tenure was announced on May 10 when Jeff Cammon was tabbed as the women’s basketball coach.

He was brought in to replace Jody Wynn, who took the head coaching job at the University of Washington after eight seasons in Long Beach. Cammon is a familiar face to the women’s basketball program having served on Wynn’s coaching staff prior to taking on assistant coach jobs with Cal Berkley and Colorado.

The trend of familiar faces being brought back into the Beach family continued with the hiring of LBSU alumna Joy McKienzie-Fuerbringer as the new women’s volleyball coach.

McKienzie-Fuerbringer has over 20 years of coaching experience and played a role during the 1993 season that brought a second national championship to the volleyball program.

She fills the coaching role that became open following the retirement of Brian Gimmillaro, who served as head coach of the program for 32 years.

Her husband Matt will join her staff as an associate head coach, according to a press release posted on the athletic department’s website when Joy’s hiring was announced.

The volleyball team will open the season at home in the Walter Pyramid against defending national champion Stanford on August 25.

The men’s golf team will have a new head coach in Michael Wilson, who comes to Long Beach State after three seasons as an assistant coach for the Washington Huskies.

Wilson was the 2003 Pac-10 Co-Freshman of the Year and was a memeber of the 2004 team that won the NCAA national championship. Prior to coaching, he played three seasons on the professional golf tour in Canada.

New venue to open for Inland Empire’s eSports community

The Inland Empire’s eSports community will finally have a place to call home with the grand opening of the “eSports Battleground” in Moreno Valley.

The Battleground is calling itself the Inland Empire’s first dedicated eSports venue and gaming community hub.

As featured on its website, logos for popular games such as Overwatch, NBA 2k, Madden, League of Legends and Call of Duty can be found and likely hint at the theme of possible events or tournaments the venue can showcase in the future.

For the venue’s grand opening on July 1, there will be an Injustice 2 tournament with a cash reward going out to first, second and third place winners. There is a $10 entry fee and a $10 venue fee.

Injustice 2 is a video game that pits superheroes and villans from the DC Universe like Batman, Superman, Harley Quinn and the Joker against each other.

What else will the event bring to the table for the grand opening? The event will feature a gaming chair giveaway, photo opportunities with the DeLorean and free tacos from World Famous Tacos.

 

Episode 1: LBSU baseball moves on and thoughts on the NBA Finals

https://bumpers.fm/_/embed/b4rjrgll8ia0012f71a0

The Long Beach State Dirtbags moves on to the Super Regionals against Cal State Fullerton baseball. James H. Williams shares his thoughts on the NBA Finals for 2017 and more

Covering eSports and the NBA 2k eLeague?

I have had the urge to pick up something new and provide coverage for it. Among the ideas that have come to mind is eSports.

The latest niche in sports, believe it or not. 

With the fans of video games filling up venues to watch gamers compete in leagues and tournaments on games such as Call of Duty, Overwatch and League of Legends.

Speaking of leagues, the one I am most interested in covering would be the NBA 2K eLeague.

The league that was announced in February is the first to be operated by one of the four major pro sports leagues in North America.

While there might be questions left unanswered, having the NBA to back the eLeague will give it a good chance of becoming the new big thing in eSports.

The 2k league will have 17 of the NBA’s 30 teams represented in 2018 for the inaugural season including the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The teams are reportedly paying close to $750,000 for a three-year commitment to take part in the new venture, according to ESPN’s Darren Rovell.

The Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers and the Minnesota Timberwolves are among the 13 teams not participating in the first season.

Since I started following gamers and personalities on Twitter, it has become clear the announcement of the new league has motivated the community with the goal of becoming drafted by an organization.

While the league is still getting off the ground, gamers have taken it upon themselves to prepare and showcase their abilities by teaming up with friends, streaming gameplay and competing in tournaments hosted by MPBA2KT.

The only question remaining is whether you would like to see coverage of the NBA 2k eLeague and other eSports. Let me know. I would like to hear from you.

Visual: San Bernardino County boys soccer rankings

Former REV, Angels pitcher Tommy Hanson remembered at RCC memorial

RIVERSIDE >> For those close to former Redlands East Valley and Riverside City College pitcher Tommy Hanson, the memorial held in his honor Saturday was a chance for closure.

More than two months after his passing at age 29, over 200 people gathered around home plate of RCC’s baseball field to pay tribute and share memories about the former Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim player.

For more on this article, click here

Why Twitter’s character limit increase is a good thing

Twitter is reportedly entertaining the thought of increasing its character count limit per tweet from 140 to 10,000.

It sounded pretty crazy at first but after reading about it. There is a lot of positives that could make any Twitter user happy.

I will be the first to admit that I was against the idea because half the fun of Twitter is getting your point across in 140 characters. I also like the current limit restraints because it keeps you focused on what you are trying to say and eliminates extra information that I, as a reporter, would be tempted to fit into a single tweet. 

While it does sound fine and dandy, there are those heartbreaking moments  when you have something you want to post immediately only to find out you are one character over the 140 limit. Then you spend five minutes fumbling around to make it fit.

Usually I work around it but I really got to thinking about the whole concept of increasing the limit when I saw this tweet from Twitter’s co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey:

 

The way he went about that tweet really opened my eyes because I have seen several of my followers do the things he has mentioned before such as tweetstorms and the screenshot text post.

One thing that I find beneficial is that it will make tweets searchable, which in my eyes is definitely a plus. 

Think about it. You screenshot your long tweet, or rant for that matter, and post it. Clearly you want someone to see it but how can they if it is not something you can search. You are cutting yourself short.

So without knowing it, this may be a change we been asking for and just haven’t realized until now.

Not sure how many of you still use this but I am sure at one time or another if you been on Twitter long enough you used TwitLonger, the third party site that provides a link to your expanded tweet.

Well much like the increase to the direct message character limits, which is at 10,000 characters, the same could be coming to your public timeline but how will that come across the timeline visually.

While it sounds like this possible increase will not hurt the way tweets are currently viewed and displayed on your timeline, we can only cross our fingers and hope for the best.

Also, if they do go through with 10,000 character count tweets. Please Twitter, add an edit button. Yes, add an edit history display as well.

Do not be afraid to follow in the steps of Facebook on this one thing.

But the elephant in the room still remains. Why did they decided to make the huge jump from 140 to 10,000 in the first place?

Only time will tell but as far as how the 140 limit came about regarding SMS made sense and as someone who had to text message tweets at one time because I did not have a smart phone, I can appreciate and respect that decision.

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Viewpoints’ special centennial issue

Well here it is!

As the event got closer and closer, I started to get this idea in my head but at the same time…I thought about something Jorge said at a JACC a few semesters back that really stuck with me.

“Leave a legacy,” he said.

While that was something I mentioned to my staff it was not my main focus.

You only get to celebrate a centennial once and for as much as I had heard about this centennial upon my arrival as a student here at Riverside City College…I knew I would be foolish to ignore it.

Along the way some valuable lessons were learned and I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

I am so proud of my staff and the way they handled this issue overall. I also thought it was a positive experience to see the college as a whole rally behind this issue and spreading the word about our coverage.

For as much as we tried to provide a service to the RCC community, they were just as giving with what they did for us.

I want to thank the members of my staff that went out of their way and canceled plans they may have had to contribute to this issue especially after we had already put together a print edition earlier this week.

These moments are what make my job enjoyable and worth doing.

Thank you all for your support whether you are a member of my staff or someone who has been in my corner for a long long time!

Shoutout to Alexis, Laura, Crystal, Tyler, Victor, Stacy, David, Brooke and everyone else that helped with this.

ISSUE CAN BE FOUND HERE

Viewpoints looks to new Editor-in-Chief

A Great Opportunity

Viewpoints Online

Posted: Feb. 17, 2015 | Written by James H. Williams

Photo courtesy of: Micah Escamila Photo courtesy of: Micah Escamila

It is an honor to be named the Editor-in-Chief for Riverside City College’s student newspaper Viewpoints.

I have several goals for this semester but my top priority is to deliver news to the students and staff on the campus with both our print edition of the newspaper and online in a variety of ways.

I hope to use the experience I have gained during my career and apply it toward meeting these goals with the talented staff I have obtained.

My experience includes working for the San Bernardino Sun, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, Cerritos College’s TalonMarks and the Downey Patriot among others.

Working for several of those media outlets, including Viewpoints, has lead to me working and meeting several different people. All of which have taught me a variety of different things. I want to…

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