He works as a charge nurse at Kaiser Permanente and moonlights as a reporter for his startup Coronado Sports Report.
Meet Jason Fledderjohn, whose desire to allow his mom in Hawaiʻi and his in-laws in Fallbrook remotely watch their grandkids grow into a budding community service for those who want to follow Islander sports teams but can’t go to the games.
Fledderjohn grew up in Coronado, playing football and baseball and graduating from the high school in 1990.
He and he and his wife Marnie moved the family back to Coronado in 2016 from Henderson, Nevada.
Now their daughter Chloe, 14, plays volleyball and softball, while his son Cable, 16, (like his dad), plays football and baseball.
Long-distance fan who’s also grandma
With the grandparents unable to watch the kids play on a regular basis, Fledderjohn came up with a solution: The Coronado Sports Report.
For a few months before baseball season started this past spring, Fledderjohn figured out how to help his mom and in-laws watch the games.
He developed a system of two to three cameras on each field or court where his children played.
There were two to three on the baseball field behind each base, one on the volleyball court and one on the net for spikes, and a couple on the football field.
Connected via Wi-Fi to two iPads, Fledderjohn sits by them, streaming the live footage from the cameras to YouTube on one iPad, and on the other, counting the score and keeping track of the players statistics using a program called sidelineHD.
Fledderjohn says his mom now “texts the kids after every game.”
Growing fan base
But quickly, it became more than just his mother across the ocean or in-laws an hour away who were tuning in to watch.
Coronado parents or fans also would begin watching if they couldn’t make it to a game and would get notified through sidelineHD if their child was up.
“It’s the software I use that allows you to score sports…and it keeps players’ accounts,” Fledderjohn explains. “Players can create their own account and whenever there’s video clips of them, it’ll stay on their account.”
The site works as a sort of data base for each player, accumulating their highlights of each of the games Fledderjohn is at to revisit at any time.
And Fledderjohn makes it to every game his children play, and more, covering water polo when he can.
Troubleshooting early glitches
It seems like a perfect system, but it didn’t always run so smoothly.
Having no background in camera work or anything media related, when Fledderjohn started he came an hour before one of the baseball games to try it.
He had talked to the coaches and worked everything out with them, and his set up was all ready to go.
But then came bad signals, camera problems, software issues and a plethora of other obstacles Fledderjohn had to work through over the next month before he was able to troubleshoot the various situations.
“The baseball field has no signal, a lot of the gyms have no signal, so that was stressful. Sometimes the stream goes down – oh, it’s horrible, it’s so bad. It’s so nerve wracking because everybody’s waiting for this game and then it doesn’t start on time,” Fledderjohn says.
Love of the games
With no help or team, Fledderjohn takes on all of the responsibility multiple times a week, but he said he is happy to do it and looks forward to it because he understands how special it is for everyone involved to have these clips to see.
It’s a great feeling because all the parents, if they can’t make it to the game, they can see their kids…and all the kids, they love it.”
Coronado Sports Report founder Jason Fledderjohn
“It’s a great feeling because all the parents, if they can’t make it to the game, they can see their kids…and all the kids, they love it,” Fledderjohn says. “I have maybe two or three pictures of my playing days in baseball and football, and I wish I had more.”
And the players also love it because Fledderjohn makes highlight reels of the games, garnering attention online and from potential college or pro scouts.
“Scouts have come out from the clips I’m sending on Twitter…and we’ll blow up a certain pitcher or player and say ‘Hey, this guy is doing great,’” Fledderjohn says.
To add to everything Fledderjohn provides, occasionally, he will work with Kelly Moore, a friend he went to Coronado High School with to take photos of the games.
Moore also has a daughter and son who play sports at the high school and will come to a few of the games to shoot photos for the players and the parents.
He regularly shoots 500 to 1,000 photos per game, and most recently he attended the varsity volleyball game on Sept. 7, coming out with over 1000 photos.
Moore will go through and select the best to upload to his site (sttsports.com), ending with around a few hundred final shots.
Together, Fledderjohn and Moore provide these players with the memories they’ll keep for a lifetime.
“Now these kids can have video clips and photos and everything they want, so it’ll be real good when they’re older and they can show their kids and family members,” Fledderjohn says.
