While most fall athletes spent the last weeks of summer gearing up for the upcoming season, the sports information office was hard at work on a different kind of offseason workout: redesigning the athletics webpage.
Sports Information Director Jim Caton worked with a team of students on the project, in conjunction with Presto Sports, a company which hosts numerous collegiate athletic websites.
The team's collective effort produced a fully-revamped athletics website just in time for the new year.
One of Caton's chief priorities in the redesign was to integrate more photo and video galleries to produce a better multimedia experience.
"It's definitely a visual refresh," Caton said. "Our content has always been great, driven by the fact that here at Bowdoin we have very, very successful teams."
"Teams' successes drive visitors to the page," he added, "but what keeps them there is a slick-looking, user-friendly format."
Bowdoin athletics had perhaps its most successful season ever last year, and the athletics website was viewed by more than 400,000 unique visitors.
Caton hopes the new design, coupled with athletic success, will increase traffic on the site.
For Caton, the biggest challenge in creating any athletics website is making the experience enjoyable for a wide array of visitors.
"It's tricky to accommodate every type of viewer," he said. "Our main goal was to improve the functionality of the site, and at the same time, make it more visually appealing."
When the College last redesigned its athletics website in 2008, the sports information office had less access to high-quality photos and videos, and didn't have the capacity to host them.
On the new site, photos and videos are featured much more prominently. The Polar Bear logo now looms large at the top of every page.
Despite the new look, Caton said that the most feedback he has received since the site went live on August 15 concerned the photo archives located on each team page, and not the redesign itself.
In these archives, team photos from both the past and present can are viewable.
Some of Bowdoin's oldest teams, including men's baseball, men's track, men's tennis, and football have team photos that date to as early as 1884.
While Caton has been pleased with the launch of the new site, he is even more excited for the new sports season to begin.
"It's always been the best part of my job," said Caton. "The sprint to Memorial Day is just around the corner."