Read online: T
he explosion of networking sites has opened a new can of worms in college and high school athletics, by Jerry Carino, Asbury Park Press (NJ) sports reporter
Andrew Campolattano could not take it anymore.
When his Facebook page turned into a verbal warzone, New Jersey's most well-known high school wrestler performed the equivalent of an electronic takedown. He deleted his account, which had grown to include 3,000 "friends," about six months ago.
"I feel like it causes a lot of drama, unneeded drama. Girls, friends — a lot of fights are started over Facebook," the Bound Brook senior and three-time state champion said. "It takes up all my time being on the computer anyway. I want to study and do homework and stuff like that, and it's hard to do that when you're distracted by the social network of America."
The past two weeks have served up nonstop cautionary tales about the perils of social media for athletes and coaches at all levels. There were Facebook-fueled rumors gone viral, since debunked, that the slumping Syracuse men's basketball team was shaving points and that Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid was being replaced by Jon Gruden. On Twitter, University of Florida football player Will Hill sabotaged his own NFL draft prospects by detailing sexual escapades for his followers, and a Mississippi State men's basketball player was suspended for criticizing his coach.
College athletics seem to be ground zero for the social media explosion, but, as with the emergence of message boards a decade ago, high school sports typically follow close behind. At the grassroots level, it's already being used in recruiting — for both courtship and announcement purposes — and is quickly becoming a trash-talk magnet.
"It's a whole can of worms," said Jay Gomes, publisher of N.J. Hoops newsletter and an Old Bridge resident. "Everybody is reading it, so you have to be careful what you say. But 17-year-old kids don't know any better and some adults don't know any better either."
This is the Wild West right now. Almost no high school or college athletic departments have policies in place yet. A few coaches have banned social media this year, but most issue words of warning and keep their fingers crossed.
"It has become a very important part of the 45-minute talk to a team at the start of each season," said Greg Viscomi, Monmouth University's assistant director of athletic communication. "I just try to make it clear that anything they put on the internet is out there forever, whether it's something they say or compromising pictures. There's no taking it back."
High school front
With most social media, as with trends in general, the students are a few steps ahead of the coaches and administrators.
Matt McMullen and Danaejah Grant are prime examples of today's fully wired teenage athletes.
McMullen, a standout senior forward on the Christian Brothers Academy boys basketball team, has 1,139 Facebook friends and 184 followers on Twitter. When he committed to play college ball at Colgate, he informed head coach Emmett Davis and then tweeted the news and posted it on Facebook.
"I've been on Facebook since my freshman year," he said. "Twitter, kids are just now starting to get on it. Before it was mostly for the media and celebrities."
McMullen posts a mix of basketball and personal stuff, like weekend plans, but he steers clear of controversy.
"I'm smart about it," he said. "It's not so much a problem with athletes, but fans of the school and other kids, they get into it. (Before) Playing Middletown North the other day, the trash (fans) were talking wasn't directed at me, but because they were writing on Facebook walls I could see it."
Grant, a junior guard on the Piscataway High School girls basketball team, is one of the top uncommitted players in the Class of 2012. She has her own website, www.danaejahhoops.com, that includes a bio, statistics, news links about her and a guestbook.
"It's a place where college coaches can go and look at my stats," she said. "I also have a Facebook page and it's strictly for basketball, for talking to college coaches."
NCAA rules are evolving on the subject. As of now, college coaches are allowed to directly message recruits on Facebook — it's viewed as akin to an e-mail — but are prohibited from writing on a recruit's Facebook wall.
"If a college coach comes to a game, my father or my coach will tell them to send me a message through Facebook," said Grant, who estimated that she's heard from about 20 of them. "It's all new, but this is a part of basketball now. I know getting out there is important."
The schools are still determining how to approach this trend.
"We don't have an official school policy, but I know it is the wave of the future," Kinnelon athletic director Scott Rosenberg said. "I know we have Facebook groups for teams, which is fine with me. Our girls soccer team had a Facebook group where they could post messages to each other, give updates and information, like an e-mail list. We have groups among our teams, but those are all created by our players . . . and they are all set to private. That is important, to make sure outsiders can't get in."
College front
In November, after Seton Hall men's basketball standout Jeremy Hazell broke a bone in his left wrist, legions of Pirate faithful were scouring his Facebook page for clues about his recovery. When Hazell indicated that he could miss the entire season — a false alarm, as it turned out — word circulated through the hoops community like a bolt of lightning.
So it's no surprise that the subject of social media policy came up during three recent Big East teleconferences between reporters and basketball coaches. It seemed like every coach had a different take.
"We try to tell them just to be smart," Georgetown men's coach John Thompson III said. "You have a bad practice, the whole world can know about it. You're mad at a teammate, a coach, yourself, parents, a girlfriend, the whole world can know about it. So it's something that's very dangerous. The nature of college athletics, athletics in general, so many people are watching and trying to bait you into things."
The St. John's and Villanova men's coaches have banned all social media during the season.
"It could be a real distraction," St. John's Steve Lavin said.
Added Villanova's Jay Wright: "It's not because of our guys. It's because of people on the internet going on there and pulling things out of context. You can just pull a piece out of a normal conversation and make it look bad."
Notre Dame's Mike Brey, who calls himself "a recovering Twitter-holic," prohibits Twitter, but not Facebook. "That's part of growing up, so that's alright," he said of the latter.
Others are more lenient.
Syracuse's Jim Boeheim: "We don't have a policy. College students use that and they have to understand going into college is learning how to handle yourself. Whatever gets on those pages is going to be public record. They need to learn that. That's why you go to college."
Pittsburgh's Jamie Dixon: "Our basic premise is, "Do the right thing, don't embarrass yourself and don't embarrass your families.' When you operate under that guideline it covers a whole lot of things. They know they're responsible for anything they put out there."
Rutgers women's coach C. Vivian Stringer: "We're just fully conscious of the fact that everything is instant press, so we want to be careful of what we say and certainly not to speak of the things that go on within the team."
Seton Hall women's coach Anne Donovan: "I don't tweet. I actually have an account on Twitter but I am the last bastion of the old-school, non-social media person. The Seton Hall Pirates tweet and our players do that. And that's great."
Stringer and Donovan said they don't recruit through Facebook but their assistants do. Monmouth football coach Kevin Callahan proceeds with caution because the rules of this game are constantly changing as the technology evolves.
"We have an office of compliance that helps us and you do have to stay on top of it, but when a high school player sends a text message to you, your natural reaction is to just text him back, and you can't do that," Callahan said. "So you can see where different kinds of social networking can get you in trouble."
Rutgers men's basketball coach Mike Rice is one of the most social media-savvy coaches you'll find. He tweets regularly and has his staff follow the tweets of recruits and Big East opponents.
"My assistants, it comes up on their phone," he said. "There is information we can use, whether it's injuries or where we stand (with a recruit). It's the life we live now. Everything is open."
Lessons learned
Rice takes a cue from one of his mentors, Pitt's Dixon, and trusts his players to tweet and Facebook respectably.
"My whole mantra is I'd like to treat them like men," Rice said. "The more they can have good decisions without me harping on it, there's growth."
His faith was tested over the summer.
First, incoming freshman Mike Poole was talking up a storm about himself and about other Big East recruiting classes. Then junior college transfer Tyree Graham tweeted that he would miss the season with an ACL tear well before Rutgers was ready to put word out about it.
Suffice it to say, Rice gave both young men a talking-to, and there have been no problems since.
"I was used to getting so much attention, and I guess I was trying to get more attention," said Graham, who had tweeted his commitment to Rutgers after publicly weighing his decision between the Scarlet Knights and Alabama-Birmingham.
"He told me just to be respectful. I don't use profanity on any social site because I'm not only representing Rutgers, I'm representing my last name."
Poole now spends much of his social media energy networking with Rutgers recruits.
"The players are the people who really recruit," he said. "When Myles (Mack) and Kadeem (Jack) were being recruited, I was a guy on Twitter and Facebook making sure I showed them love. You need to get that from the whole program, not just the coaches."
This is the brave new world. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube. Everyone is his or her own publisher and producer. It's a genie that won't go back in the bottle, as colleges are finding out and high schools will soon see.
"It'll trickle down. It always does," Linden High School boys basketball coach Phil Colicchio said. "I'm sure next year I'll read on Facebook something I said or did in practice. We'll deal with it then."
When the wave hits it might be helpful to remember this maxim quoted by CBA's McMullen, appropriately, via text message:
"With great power comes great responsibility."