By George Zhang, Co-Sports Editor
Senior Ian Kim blows by a defender and sprints to the goal where he scores on three other players closing in on him. This is just one of many notable moments captured by the lacrosse highlights reels that Kim creates for himself and for other players around the Pennsylvanian region.
A highlights reel is a compilation of notable plays by an athlete that shows how good they are at the sport they play. The creation process usually starts out with the client sending Kim footage of games they’ve played in along with timestamps of when they made a play that should be included in the edit. Kim then compiles all the clips together while adding in background music. While he charges around $30 per video, money is not his main motivation.
“It (the reason I started) was for my personal recruitment at first because I wanted to get myself out there and highlight tapes are the best way to do it,” Kim said. “It’s not for the money, it’s really just because I enjoy it.”
Many athletes who aspire to play their sport at college have videos of their best plays. Kim believes that highlights reels give athletes an edge during the recruitment process.
“Obviously, (the highlights tape) is not the full picture but it is the exclamation point. And I think for kids that want to get recruited, it’s kind of the icing on the cake,” Kim said. “It shows that the recruits are willing to go the extra step to put together film and send it to coaches.”
Starting in eighth grade, Kim has improved over the years, largely from drawing inspiration from other people’s work. He described what he likes the most about creating these edits.
“The best part about it is just putting together a final product that I’m proud to share to other people even if it’s not (of myself). And just creating a nice three minute video of someone’s best plays is really cool to see,” Kim said.
His most popular video features ’Stoga alumni Aidan Kelly, who currently plays lacrosse for Syracuse. The video garnered more than ten thousand views, blowing Kim’s expectations out of the water.
“I had relatively high hopes to get him around three thousand to four thousand views, but I honestly didn’t expect it to reach ten thousand as quickly as it did. But when I first posted it and saw it shoot up (in views) like that, I kind of knew that it was heading towards that direction,” Kim said.
Having committed to Williams College for lacrosse for next year, Kim aspires to improve at editing and to grow his name.
“As of right now (one of my goals) is to get better at my craft. I see all these other editors and what they’re able to put out, and I want to be able to do the same thing,” Kim said. “My biggest goal is to grow my brand on a larger scale.”
George Zhang can be reached at [email protected].
