How Hudl's Mobile-Video Software Is Transforming Sports

- Matthew Shaer

An hour before dawn on a recent winter morning, the members of the Jonesboro High School basketball squad file into a darkened classroom to watch tape from the previous night’s win over Eagle’s Landing. On paper, at least, the showing was impressive—the kind of come-from-behind, 14-point victory that catapulted Jonesboro, a public school in the outskirts of Atlanta, to back-to-back Georgia state titles in 2014 and 2015.

But the Jonesboro Cardinals’ coach, Dan Maehlman, is having trouble finding much to praise. “Do you know what it means when I say deny? Am I speaking a foreign language?” he asks, gripping his head as if it’s about to crater open. He gestures at the projector screen, where two defenders are failing to intercept a lob pass. Maehlman rewinds and replays the offending sequence. “Let me try this again for you guys: Deny means that your goddamn player does not catch the goddamn basketball.”