“Go to Google and search ‘kicked off team and Twitter’ and
you’ll have 300,000 hits in less than a second pop up,” the University of
Colorado Boulder’s associate sports information director Curtis Snyder said to
me when asked about the negative consequences of student-athletes using social media. The
conversation arose as part of a white paper I was developing on successful
strategies for college/university athletic departments to use in
approaching social media training with their student-athletes, and the topic was one in
which many in sports have taken a position.
Ohio State's backup quarterback Cardale Jones before & after
disciplinary suspension for inappropriate tweets
Some schools have outright banned the use of social media
among student-athletes whether on select teams or as a whole, including the
likes of Villanova and Mississippi State, as well as the universities of Miami,
South Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, and Florida State to name just a few, believing it
does more harm than good. The University
of Louisville coach Rick Pitino gave his rather outspoken opinion in support of his basketball team's Twitter ban at the end of February going so far as
to call social media “poison,” and that anyone who reads it as “not all there,”
both at a news conference and on an appearance on ESPN
Radio’s Mike and Mike.
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| FOX Sports Live post news conference Tweet |
However, there are many who see social media as an opportunity to engage, to communicate, and to have control over personal
reputation and branding. Kentucky coach
John Calipari spoke out on the same “Mike and Mike” show in defense of these
digital tools describing the value in their proper use among his
student-athletes. “Twitter is an
opportunity -- Facebook is an opportunity -- to say what you feel, to try to
pick people up, to try to be positive, to try to add something to society, to
try to let people see you transparently. You cannot be defined, if you are on
social media, by somebody else,” he continued.
And there are student athletes who have succeeded at making
social media an extension of who they are in a positive and encouraging way.
With March Madness underway and NCAA athletes in the spotlight as they fight their way to a championship title this basketball season, it seems an opportune moment to discuss social media and what fans might be exposed to from their favorite collegiate stars. So I bring you a rundown on some of the best
and the worse moments in collegiate student-athletes and social media history. You be the judge, should we encourage its use
or ban it all together?
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