High school basketball coverage is taking on a different look through the Butler Eagle.

Beginning Tuesday, a link on the newspaper's website known as "Rebound" will be up and running.

This portion of the web-site — accessible by clicking on Rebound after logging on to butlereagle.com — will feature video highlights of a boys and girls basketball game of the week in Butler County, a fan cam that captures local fans cheering for their favorite teams and a player spotlight segment that shows a video interview of a different player each week, along with coaches comments and practice footage.

Other features of "Rebound"include school spirit — showing a varsity cheerleading squad performing one of its favorite cheers — along with boys and girls basketball rosters and schedules.

Cyber cards of each varsity player, featuring more information, are also part of the site.

A sports roundtable will be shown each week, with members of the Eagle sports department discussing their views on various games and issues surrounding high school basketball.

Brandon Gerthoffer, a Slippery Rock University graduate, was recently hired as videographer and a coordinator for the project."We want to make Rebound as interactive as possible,"Eagle General Manager Ron Vodenichar said. "That will be a process. People will be able to email questions and comments in for the panel to address on the roundtable."We're not just a newspaper anymore. This is a new source of high school sports coverage we want to provide.""Rebound"will be updated by 3 p.m. each day. Highlights of a game videoed Monday will be shown on the web-site by 3 p.m. Tuesday, for example.The sports roundtable is taped each Wednesday and will be on the web-site Thursday. Once any item appears on the web-site, it will remain there for a week.As each item is replaced, it is archived on the web-site and will still be easily accessible by viewers."We realize a lot of young people prefer to read their news on the Internet today,"Vodenichar said. "This is a unique way to bring local sports coverage to them."This will help us remain and further enhance us as the primary source of high school sports coverage for every school in Butler County."Gerthoffer majored in Emerging Technologies and Multi-Media at SRU. He minored in film and media studies."That's what steered me in this direction," he said. "I'm fascinated by this project. It's only going to get better as we delve deeper into it."Gerthoffer admitted that high school basketball is "a new experience for me and I've really gotten into it."The roundtable will be effective. The topics are good, pertinent stuff," he said.Vodenichar indicated the Eagle is one of the first newspapers to produce a high school sports web-site with this much detail."We're certainly one of the early newspapers (in Western Pennsylvania) to do it," he said."This is a high school basketball web-site right now, hence the name Rebound. Other sports may come into play later."The web-site butlereagle.com has existed since 1998. The entire Butler Eagle newspaper is available on-line, along with a limited version."It is the most comprehensive web-site for local news and sports in the county,"Vodenichar said.Butlereagle.com averages 5,000 unique users daily and nearly three quarters of a million page viewers monthly.

Gerthoffer