Note: This posting is from the Sport Communication Research Alliance (SCRA) and is the first SCRA roundtable discussion. It focuses on the question “Should college coaches ban their athletes from using social media? Why or why not?”.
Those participating in the roundtable include CoSIDA members, sports management professionals and others in the college sports industry. They are:
• Chris Yandle, University of Miami (Fla.) Assistant AD/Communications
• Jeff Kallin, Clemson University Assistant Sports Information Director
• Stephen Dittmore, Ph.D., Univ. of Arkansas Associate Professor, Recreation and Sport Management
• Blair Browning, Ph.D., Baylor University Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
• Andrea Eagleman, Ph.D., senior lecturer at Massey University (New Zealand) and a former faculty member in sport management at IUPUI and Indiana University, among others
• Kevin DeShazo, founder, FieldHouse Media
The SCRA is a consortium of professors, scholars, and practitioners interested in the cultural and technological elements of communication in sports. Founded by Dr. Jimmy Sanderson and Dr. Galen Clavio in 2013, the purpose of the SCRA is to promote the pursuit of knowledge in relation to sport communication, particularly as it relates to social media phenomena and the changing nature of the sport audience.
See this discussion online. Go to the SCRA forums HERE.
We are excited to launch yet another new feature on the Sport Communication Research Alliance website, and one that we hope to bring you on a consistent basis. One of the goals of the SCRA is to bring together the best minds in sport communication and social media from both the sport industry and the academic side of sport, to help both parties find common ground on the pressing issues facing sport and communication, and to promote thoughtful approaches to solving these issues.
To that end, we are happy to announce the first SCRA Roundtable. We start with a current issue in the sport communication world, and then we craft a question around that issue. That question is then distributed to a group of industry experts, as well as a group of sport communication scholars. We ask them to respond with about 300-500 words on the topic, based upon their experiences and expertise, and then we present their answers here on the site.
The question for the first SCRA Roundtable focuses on an issue which has become quite divisive in the coverage of college athletics. We posed the following to our two panels of experts:
“Should college coaches ban their athletes from using social media? Why or why not?”
Here’s what they came up with, starting with our industry experts:
Kevin DeShazo
Founder, Fieldhouse Media
Twitter: @fieldhousemedia
93% of college athletes are using social media on a daily basis. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Ask.fm, Tumblr, LinkedIn. 93%. They are using it to connect with friends and fans, to network for jobs and to build an online presence. Naturally, some will make mistakes – just like adults on social media do. Mistakes are not a reason to ban it, a route that some coaches choose to take. To justify their decision, coaches throw out words like distraction and dangerous.
A distraction? Players aren’t tweeting during practice or games. If they are, the coach has lost control of their team. And where do we draw the line on what constitutes as a distraction? Television, Internet, dating/relationships? What about class? That’s time players could spend studying plays or hitting the weight room. Posts from your players can give fans/media/recruits an inside look at your program. It increases your program’s visibility. It draws people in.
Dangerous? Social media isn’t dangerous. People can use it in a dangerous way, but that’s not the fault of social media. If educated on how to use social media well, players will understand the power of social media and the impact of their decisions. Help them understand how to use it in a positive and appropriate way and it becomes a valuable asset in recruiting. Prepare them for success, then trust and expect success from them. To quote Chip Kelly, “If you can’t trust your kids on Twitter then you’ve recruited the wrong kids.”
Coaches are paid to win games, that’s no secret. Alabama won the BCS National Championship last year, and their players tweet freely. Only 4 of the current Top 25 teams ban their players from Twitter. In basketball, only 1 of the Top 25 teams ban their players – New Mexico (though that will most likely change now that Steve Alford is gone). Social Media doesn’t impact wins and losses. Repeat that until it sinks in.
Social media can be the best PR tool your program has, and it’s free. Student-athletes are capable of using it and using it well, if we educate them. Banning players from social media won’t help your program. All it does is tell your players that while you trust them to make good decisions on the field, off the field they cannot be trusted. As one recruiting coordinator at a Big Ten program told me, “If we shut them off from social media, we’re telling them they are only valuable to us as an athlete.”
Is that the message we want to send?
Jeff Kallin
Assistant Sports Information Director, Clemson University
Athletic Twitter account: @CU_athletics
The arbitrary social media shutdown is a major challenge to social-savvy departments, especially when the coach, who will often have the final say, is leading the charge against it – often because they don’t understand it.
There are a few things to consider when you speak with your coach.
1. TIMING – Coaches can be temperamental, and are often creatures of habit. Find the appropriate time to sit down, and let them know in advance what you’d like to talk about. Additionally, if the season is getting started, and they have set their ground rules, it’s probably too late for that season. If this is the case, it may be a great opportunity to teach your coach how to use it for next season, without the pressure of them having to monitor their team.
2. LISTEN – Ask the coach about his or her ban on social media. Ask non-threatening questions like 'what are some of the reasons you have in place?', or ‘what do you believe the biggest threat to your team or program is in social media?’ Garnering these perspectives, and listening all the way through, will help you to better understand where your coach is coming from.
3. STEER – Coaches want their programs to succeed. Direct the conversation away from some of the negatives (distractions, focus, etc.), and talk about how it can help the program. Recruiting and fan engagement (attendance) are the most obvious areas in which a coach stands to gain. Each of their student-athletes is a networked person on campus. Additionally, in the near future, social bans will be negatively recruited.
4. PLAN – work with your coach to make sure they are on some of the social media channels, and walk them through basic uses. Additionally, work with them to create a series of guidelines for their specific team.
Remember, you are the expert in the room on this subject. You can discuss with them some of @KevinDeShazo’s rebuttals. Educate them to understand all of the positive value that can be gained for their program and your school. They preach in their programs about developing young men and women, and shutting these same people from a primary form of communication is hardly a step in the right direction. Social media breeds accountability, and with a plan in place, your team stands to benefit from the new policies.
Chris Yandle
Assistant AD/Communications, University of Miami (Fla.)
Twitter: @ChrisYandle
Social media has done just as much good (if not more) for the advancement of human communication and information sharing as it has done bad for our society. Seriously. At some level, social media – especially Twitter – has exposed serious and oppressed social issues and views throughout the last few years.
Pro athletes. Coaches. College athletes. High school athletes. If you are in sports, the magnifying glass exposes your every move, the bright lights are always shining and the press conference is always live.
At the end of the day, however, social media education and developing good habits on social media will help you build your personal brand. Protecting, developing and cultivating your personal brand is more important than ever. You control your story, no one else can. Taking away something or suppressing a large group will only lead to revolt. Social media is now part of our culture; it’s ingrained in our minds.
It’s a part of our everyday function. We should be teaching kids and young adults how to use it properly. Twitter is a telephone, not a megaphone. Use Twitter for good. Build your brand. If you use it incorrectly, you can lose your job, your scholarship or your reputation could suffer irreparable damage.
Every day is a job interview. You never know who’s watching. I’ve been fortunate enough that my current job was made possible in small part because of my social media etiquette, education and presence. Because of that, I want to impart that on student-athletes and my staff. Social media education is a necessary life skill. Believe it or not.
Twitter and social media won’t win or lose games for you. You win and lose on the practice field and in the game. But, not using social media correctly could lead you to losing your job and your reputation.
The only thing that disappears on the Internet is a good reputation.
Let’s all be proactive and educate everyone with good social media habits.
Blair Browning, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, Baylor University
Twitter: @Blair_Browning
How to convince a coach on why banning one form of social media (aka Twitter) is a bad move?
How about the fact that social media and especially Twitter are becoming a big part of the classroom experience? I am about to begin my 15th year teaching at Baylor University and I try to constantly adapt and tweak my courses to keep them fresh not only for my own enjoyment, but also so the class doesn’t get stale.
I have expectations for my students each semester, which my students must follow in order to have a successful experience. I keep an eye out for best practices when it comes to classroom strategy.
We all have a wealth of information at our fingertips and it seems foolish not to take advantage of it. One thing that may be too early to call a trend, as I know very few individuals who have integrated this into their course structure, is the use of the hashtag. My friend and colleague, Dr. Jimmy Sanderson at Clemson University, has been using the hashtag for the past year in his classes as a way to “group messages” for his students with great success and positive student feedback.
This upcoming fall semester, I have a class of 27 students and 8 of them participate in one of our 19 scholarship sports. What if I decide that all of my students need to have a Twitter account and follow a certain hashtag based around my class #COMM1234, for example? A coach who bans a student-athlete from using Twitter is now hindering the academic pursuits of this individual. My colleagues in this roundtable can make plenty of persuasive arguments as to why Twitter can be a valuable tool, but my role is to show its significance even in the classroom. For all of the (well-deserved) criticism the term student-athlete has received, these kids are still students as well as athletes.
I’ve been asked by a student each of the last three semesters to tweet something to them whether it was a quote, announcement, or assignment. I want to be at the intersection of where my students are and maintain relevance with them while at the same time not chasing every new fad. Twitter is not a fad and while I’m not going to start tweeting everything to my students, the idea of grouping articles and discussions around a hashtag is quite intriguing.
Most schools have some type of Welcome Week for their incoming students and at Baylor, Dr. Alden Smith, who has been given the highest distinction of “Master Teacher” will give the faculty address at Academic Convocation this year. He will ask each (incoming) student to consider writing a pledge that indicates what he/she aims to do as she/he enters his/her new community. Students are invited to tweet their pledges to #BUconvo2013.
I believe this signifies we have reached a tipping point with Twitter – it is no longer going to be merely a few innovators trying new things in classes. The university is grouping messages through the use of a hashtag as part of their structured curriculum for incoming students. Coaches, trust the kids who you have recruited (perhaps via Twitter) and let your athletes be students, too. #itmakessense
Stephen W. Dittmore, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Recreation and Sport Management, University of Arkansas
Twitter: @stevedittmore
I remember getting my first Commodore 64 computer when I was in junior high. I tried to create some ridiculous college basketball prognostication program with a series of if/then statements. You know, if a team had 20-wins the previous season then it gets +5 when playing an opponent with fewer than 20 wins. Shocking it didn’t work, right?
It was the beginning, and immediate end, of my programming career. Until now. Sort of.
If the director of the marching band issues a no-tweet edict to the flutists, then yes coaches should ban student-athletes from Twitter. If the director of student affairs at the university bars the student body president from tweeting behind the scenes at a student government meeting, then yes coaches should suppress student-athlete speech.
If the journalism adviser to the student paper prohibits tweets from student reporters, then yes coaches should forget about educating and teaching their athletes and merely put a gag on them. If college coaches want complete, authoritarian control over their labor (economists call this monopsony power), then yes coaches should ban the student-athletes from saying things on Twitter which might steal the attention away from their regime.
If student-athletes are to be singled out from other classes of students engaged in extracurricular activities on campus (which, after all, we know is counter to how the NCAA views its mission as “an integral part of higher education”. But don’t take my word for it, read it here on NCAA President Mark Emmert’s page), then yes coaches should ban student-athletes from Twitter.
But in this hyper-sensitive environment in which college athletics finds itself today, what with autograph-gate, lawsuits over profiting from video game likenesses, and the selling of jerseys worn by 21-year olds, the last thing college athletics needs is to provide the public more reason to doubt the sincerity of its stated mission. Suppressing the rights of expression of 18-22 year olds does just that.
If college athletics truly wants to talk its talk, then it should not prohibit student-athletes from doing the same.
Andrea N. Eagleman, Ph.D.
Senior Lecturer in Sport Management, Massey University, New Zealand
Eagleman on LinkedIn
While this is a complex topic, ultimately I do not believe that college coaches should ban their athletes from using social media. First and foremost, the United States Constitution grants all citizens the right to freedom of speech, and I believe that banning college athletes from using social media is essentially censorship of those athletes and violates one of their basic freedoms.
Along with the questionable constitutionality of banning athletes from using social media, it also seems that the concept is rooted in the belief that social media inherently brings about negative consequences. The very notion of banning social media use seems to convey a sense of suspicion towards student athletes, as though they can’t possibly be trusted to make mature decisions. As college is supposed to be a place for young people to grow and be exposed to new opportunities and experiences, banning student athletes from using social media serves to stifle to such growth. Meanwhile, communication and marketing researchers around the globe have begun to highlight a variety of benefits that individuals and organizations can gain from using social media. I believe that college coaches and universities should focus on these positive aspects instead of the potential negative consequences.
The NCAA often broadcasts public service announcements on TV stating that most student athletes “will go pro in something other than sports”, which is true. Only a select few college athletes will continue their athletic careers after graduation, but using social media while in college has the potential to benefit all student athletes regardless of their future athletic pursuits. For those who hope to have post-collegiate athletic careers, social media can serve as a method by which to begin building their personal athletic brand and promote their athletic careers.
For those who don’t wish to go pro after college, understanding the various social media outlets and the proper use of such outlets can prove to be a valuable tool in the workplace, as many businesses are scrambling to utilize social media as effectively as possible in order to build brand awareness and communicate with customers and other stakeholders. Social media can also serve as a personal networking tool, which can help in several different aspects of an individual’s life.
Finally, I feel it is important to acknowledge that although it may not be fair, the reality is that student athletes are often held to a higher standard than their college peers by society. Therefore, I do believe that it is incumbent upon collegiate athletic departments to provide ongoing social media training for student athletes to help ensure that they are able to make the best possible choices on their social media accounts. While I don’t believe in policing or banning student athletes from social media, providing them with the proper tools to make informed and intelligent social media decisions will ultimately benefit both the athletes and the university.
Thanks once again to the expert panelists for their thoughts on this first SCRA Roundtable. We’d like to hear your thoughts and comments on this topic. Head over to the SCRA Forums to discuss the topic with us and others.