John WidecanAssociate A.D./Football OperationsUniversity of CincinnatiWhy did you decide to implement Teamworks for your program?The first thing that jumps out is the ability to communicate with text, email, and voice with athletes, Football staff, and people in the athletic department. There are other ways we could do it if we tried, but the ease of Teamworks is the biggest thing.The next thing that was a big selling point for us was the ability to document info on our players like academic notes and weight room info. We can let our equipment guys, academics staff, and everyone else add their files and notes on each of the guys. That is really important for us. If we have kids who are having problems in the classroom or the weight room or anywhere else, we have a documented progress report, whether good or bad. Before we didn’t really have a way to document progress and now we have a record of everything that’s happened with each player.How have you and your staff used Teamworks?Communication is what I use the most. A couple weeks ago, we had a snow day and I was able to immediately send a text, voice, and email with everyone on it to make sure they knew the deal. Being able to monitor our messages and knowing that people got them is huge. Also, being able to schedule messages in advance is really good and is an option that I didn’t have in the past. I don’t have to think about sending a message at a certain time- I can just have it set up in advance.Our trainer is starting to use forms for medical paperwork and we’re excited about that. Also, being able to look up everyone’s schedule and know exactly where someone is and when they’re in class is huge.How have your players and staff reacted to Teamworks?Everyone who has gotten set up loves it. Everyone who has used it is amazed, and more and more people are getting trained and started.I’m usually a really hard sell on this kind of stuff, but the more I used this, the more I understood why teams need it.As far as operations go, this makes your job a lot easier. The ability to communicate quickly with everyone in your program from anywhere in a fashion that’s easy for them to read and access makes a big difference.With our staff transition, the first thing we did was print out the player profiles and give the new position coaches a packet of their guys so they could learn names and faces and see their info.How would you rate Teamworks’ implementation, training, and support?It is really important to me that Teamworks calls and trains the staff. I think that’s a really good feature that you reach out directly to each person and give them one-on-one training.I like the fact that you take the responsibility to call and train every area, and once you train them it’s really powerful for them. In terms of customer support, any question we’ve had has gotten answered quickly. But most of all it’s just a really easy-to-use product.Would you recommend Teamworks to other football programs?For anyone in operations, this should be your best friend. It’s going to be a huge help for you and if you get it you’re not going to want to be without it. I’m excited we have it and I know it’s going to make life easier for me.How would you distinguish Teamworks from other software programs?We have a recruiting system too but it doesn’t give us the ability to communicate and document like Teamworks. There is a mass text in there but it doesn’t compare. The communication level just isn’t the same. With Teamworks you can tie in all your other groups: equipment, sports info, etc. For me, it’s two totally different things. Those other systems are recruiting systems and they don’t do much for operations whereas this encompasses a lot of different things that we need to get done.I would say that the people who do test this and use it will see tremendous value in it and will find a way to buy it. Once you start using it, you realize you need it. I’m really glad we have it.