Proper Facebook Use, Recruits taking Visits, and Staying close to Home

Submitted by StephenRKass on

I followed yesterday's discussion about Facebook and friends with interest. Full disclosure: I am a 49 year old Michigan Grad. In other words, my time really came before extensive use of Facebook, Myspace, etc. For those of you who are teens and current students, I am just another old fart. However, I am also a pastor, who has some responsibility and relationship with youth in the church, and I have a 15 year old daughter. She lives on Facebook. For this reason, I have a Facebook account. It allows me to briefly keep tabs on the youth at church, and my daughter, and rarely, to comment or reply to something. Some of the youth just use Facebook, and no e-mail. For the same reason, if they request it, I also text message them, instead of calling or e-mailing. I am trying, with some reluctance, to stay "current."

However, I never even consider texting or facebooking someone who isn't interested in contact. In fact, I RARELY facebook or text those who I already know. I have never even considered becoming "friends" on Facebook with someone I don't already know personally. I probably only go on Facebook once or twice a week . . . I just don't have time for it. And when I go there, I sometimes wonder at the wisdom of some of the stuff the youth actually put up for others to read.

Which brings us to recruiting. It is bad enough that I waste as much time as I do on mgoblog. But I don't think I would ever consider putting recruit names in to see if they would "confirm" me as a friend. I'm just an old white geezer they don't know from Adam.

However, instead of criticizing, I would love to hear from some of you young whippersnappers about proper Facebook etiquette. Are you telling me that in youth culture, it is ok to send friend requests to as many people as you want, whether you know them or not? What is the age cut off? When are you weirded out by someone older contacting you on Facebook? I kind of assume that somewhere around 30, you are an "adult," and below, you are youth or college age.

As regards recruits, it just seems weird and inappropriate to me to have personal facebook contact with a recruit, just because you were able to google stalk his name and high school, and so forth.

On that note, I really liked the Oku comments about just being left alone. Between fans, recruiting gurus, family, media, coaches, and who knows who else, it has got to be really over the top, the amount of contact and pressure put on quality hs football players.

I really like reading Tom VH, but I'm curious how he gets so much info without becoming annoying to recruits. When does one cross the line?

On another topic, I think it is great that these athletes have the opportunity to take visits to different schools. What I think many of us Michigan grads forget is how sheltered many of these players are. We should all remember that many of them have never been on a plane, and in some cases, never traveled out of the state they live in. Some of them have rarely, if ever, eaten in a nice restaurant. When I moved to Chicago, I was shocked to find some teens who had NEVER been to Lake Michigan, or to Indiana. To some of these recruits, seeing the ocean or snow or a huge stadium is about the same as many of us going to Antarctica or Mount Everest. I also think it is wise for them to check several schools out, to make sure they are sure. For every Ricardo Miller, (or coach's kid Jim Harbaugh) who knows they are going to Michigan, there are a dozen who don't have a clue. I would rather that they visit enough schools to know "Yes, I really want to be a Michigan Man," then to make a commitment and have regrets.

Another thing I remember from my time in AA was how many fellow students had lived their whole lives in Michigan, especially metro Detroit . . . in Livonia, or Troy, or Warren, or Gross Pointe, or Bloomfield Hills, but also a bunch from Grand Rapids, or Muskegon, or the Lansing or Flint area. They had never been extensively exposed to other areas of the country and world, and were pretty narrow in their thinking. Mind you, there were always kids from Chicago and NY, but the vast majority were Michigan homers. Maybe things have changed now. But my point is this. Many Michigan fans have lived in Michigan their whole lives, went to Michigan, and want their kids to go to Michigan. Even if they had the money, they wouldn't choose to go (or for their kids to go) to Texas, or to Harvard, or to Yale, or to Stanford, or to Southern Cal, or to Washington. And yet, we want kids from wherever to leave their families, their roots, their comfort zone, just so we can have a football team. If someone wants to do this, to escape Pahokee or wherever, that's great. But I don't think it's unreasonable for kids (and parents) to be somewhere near each other. I parked next to LaMarr Woodley's folks at the ND game 3 - 4 years ago, and I'm sure his parents were happy to be able to drive to a majority of their son's games. In hockey, I'm sure that Kampfer's parents are glad he's going to school close enough to attend. The solution is not just to recruit kids from elsewhere (Florida, Texas, Ohio, California). The solution has to be at least partially, to improve the quality of HS football in Michigan.

Comments

RONick

February 4th, 2009 at 10:32 PM ^

I think that is asking for a lot. Part of the problem is that MI simply cannot compete at the high school level due to such cold winters. Other states (TX and FL off the top of my head) are able to have spring football due to their warmer climates. If you think about it, football is a sport where game action is sparse due to the violent nature of the sport and amount of preparation necessary for a game. If kid only plays 9 games a year (more if making the playoffs), that is really not that much football to prepare for the future.

Also, being in a warmer climate allows kids to simply be outside more throughout the year. This cultivates more running, improving speed and balance, obviously major benefits in the game of football.

Due to these geographic differences, many kids from the north resort to Basketball or other sports that don't require as much time spent out in the nasty elements of late fall/winter.

While I empathize with wanting to have local kids and all, football has become about money as much as anything else. Winning is all that matters. And because of this, getting the best players means having to step outside of the region to build a winning team.

TomVH

February 5th, 2009 at 12:37 PM ^

I don't use facebook as my source of information. I have built friendships through there, and have branched off of that. I'm not annoying, because I don't send them messages that say, "I hope you pick Michigan, we need you!"