Houck Stadium was filled with students and families on Oct. 9, but not for any sporting event — for a movie. Friday night, the Athletics Department aired “Black Panther.”
The movie night was part of Nestflix, a month-long series hosted by the athletic department. Once a week during the month of October, the athletic department shows movies at Houck Field. The series will finish with a watch party for War for the Wheel, the 88th football game between Southeast and rival SIU on Oct. 30.
The month of movies substitutes sports, due to COVID-19 precautions. Nate Saverino, the associate athletic director for external affairs, said the department wanted to use its new video board before the next semester, when sporting events will resume on the field.
“Nestflix came about because we’re disappointed as an athletic department that we’re not able to have fall sports,” Saverino said. “We just thought it would be a great idea to utilize that brand-new video board and just give back to the campus community.”
Phillip Lady, assistant director of athletics for marketing, controlled the screen from the stands so viewers could enjoy the experience. He said the best way for the hosts to show the movie was to stream it.
“When we purchase the rights to the videos, we can do it one of two ways,” Lady said. “We can stream it or play it off of a video. And we’ve found more success on our end to stream it.”
This was the second showing of the semester. The first Nestflix movie was “Remember The Titans” on Oct. 2.
While there are various ways to get information about these events, one way is to find it on the student portal. That is how one Southeast Sophomore learned about the event.
“I heard about it from a friend in one of my classes, and then I looked it up on the student portal and saw the activities,” they said.
There will be three more showings this month. “Monsters University” will be shown on Oct. 16, and Hocus Pocus will be shown on Oct. 23. The Halloween movie will be decided through a poll. These options include “Hocus Pocus,” “Casper” and “Nightmare Before Christmas.” All Nestflix showings are free and open to the public.
