OT: Iowa BB coach shuts down player Twitter accounts
Iowa Hawkeye coach Fran McCaffery told his players to shut down their Twitter accounts for the rest of the season because of Senior Zach McCabe's exchange with some "fans" on his account.
Interested in people's thoughts on the move and whether its a good or bad move on the coach's part.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:27 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 10:37 AM ^
but dumbest thing in the world I think is dependent on the individual. Some folks can handle it, some can't. Kids have a tougher time due to less maturity and if you can't handle the heat, as they say...
/off to shut down my Twitter acct
February 26th, 2014 at 12:30 PM ^
I don't know. Nothing good seems to ever come from Twitter. We have tons of examples of the bad, but can anyone show an example of where Twitter has done some form of tangible good?
February 26th, 2014 at 1:03 PM ^
is probably a lot like your company IT department. When it does good, you don't hear anything about it and when it does bad everyone knows every detail.
February 26th, 2014 at 3:19 PM ^
but off the top of my head:
Twitter acts as a last resort option for customer service. Can't get Time Warner or Sprint to fix your issue? Tweet about it, and it'll generally be escalated up the chain immediately.
There has been some research that you can predict the stock price of a company by analyzing positive and negative tweets about the company. It's taking a concept like Google Flu Trends to a whole new level.
And, generally, the ability to receive instantaneous information that is unfiltered by media. Fans tweeting during sporting events, Game of Thrones fans tweeting after the Red Wedding, athletes tweeting directly with fans, and Osama Bin Laden's neighbor inadvertently live tweeting OBL's death. Oh, and the Arab Spring.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:12 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 11:34 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 1:27 PM ^
Depends. Is Fred Jackson of this earth?
mind. blown.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:29 AM ^
I think it's a bad decision on Iowa's part. These kids should be taught how to properly and responsibly use social media as scholar athletes. Taking it away from them altogether will accomplish nothing for them in the long term. If used in the right way, having athletes on social media can greatly help the university's exposure.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:50 AM ^
The responsibility always rests with the entity, never, ever, the person using that entity. Sheesh.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:59 AM ^
killed on Twitter by a-hole fans, he reacts, then has to apologize which creates a PR mess. Most regular people don't get relentlessly trolled via Twitter if their presentation does not go well to the marketing department, not really providing a good learning environment for the use of social technologies. Fran wants his kids to focus and told them to use it after the season is over, makes sense to me considering this issue which is just a distraction.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:15 AM ^
Don't get me wrong, I understand why Fran did what he did and how Twitter and the way these kids get treated on there is a pure distraction. My thought is that schools in general need to start being more proactive about this type of thing. Twitter and other social media is here to stay and athletes are going to use it unless otherwise forbidden (which to be blunt, is the lazy thing to do).
If it is used like you are a regular college kid when he gets trolled, their Twitter is gonna get ugly. If used like a resonsible adult who has been coached to use it appropriately as well as how to handle the trolls, it can only help the university's and that person's image. That's all I'm saying. May not be the most easiest route or the most practical, especially in the middle of the season, but it is by far the smartest route to go.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:28 AM ^
Who's to say they don't, as you say, teach their players to use Twitter responsibly? "McCaffrey holds seminar on social media use for his players" doesn't make it into headlines. I'm sure that for 100 coaches there are 100 different approaches, but I'm also sure that the policy at most schools isn't "do nothing until someone does something that makes us forbid it entirely." I think the proactive approach you want is probably in place at most places to some extent.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^
If I were a coach, I'd set some very strict social media rules from the start - I wouldn't wait for something like this to happen. I'd say that players could gave social media as long as they communicated with the people they know and know one else. Want to tweet pictures of your dinner to your friends? No problem. Fan interaction of any kind would be a no-no.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:30 AM ^
Honestly, I'm not sure why all coaches don't, at the very least, discourage social media for the players. I know if I was a football/basketball player in college I wouldn't use Twitter, FB, etc. It's just not worth it. I understand having more of a private FB account, but I wouldn't friend/talk to fans. There's way too many stupid people on the internet.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:31 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 10:44 AM ^
so yea its a good move
February 26th, 2014 at 11:16 AM ^
Everything is the devil to you, 93Grad! Well, I like social media, and I like Twitter! And I'm gonna keep doin' them both because they make me feel good!
February 26th, 2014 at 11:23 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 1:22 PM ^
I take it though, that you are not a D1 football or basketball player, or anyone else who's current or future livelihood depends on their public persona.
February 26th, 2014 at 1:29 PM ^
Woosh moment?
February 26th, 2014 at 10:45 AM ^
Has there ever been someone praised for their use of twitter? I understand players want to express themselves, but it always ends up poorly for them.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:03 AM ^
Intangibles.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:51 AM ^
Then general rule should be don't say anything to anyone that you wouldn't say to them in person.
But, the internet makes everyone 10ft tall and instantly a master in all fields of knowledge.
I like the move and do would do the same thing myself if I was a coach.
February 26th, 2014 at 10:51 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 10:52 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 10:55 AM ^
That seems excessive. I'd just make them stop tweeting. You can still use Twitter to follow news/announcements without posting anything yourself.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:07 AM ^
Fran is Will Ferrell in 15 years.
When they make the movie "Hawkeye of the Storm" they will cast Will Ferrell in the role of Coach Fran.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:08 AM ^
The Quad City Times did a longer piece on the subject and provided some vague insight into what was said, although not the tweet from McCabe itself (which may be lost to history now) - LINK
Senior Zach McCabe, who has been a target of some fans on social media throughout the season, underwent a barrage of abuse on Twitter after he shot an airball on an open 3-point shot in the final minute of the game. McCabe responded with a profane tweet telling those fans what they could do.
We might wager a rather good guess at what he told them to do, but McCaffrey did sit the team down apparently short afterwards to have the meeting about it. According to the article, the discussion went well and McCaffrey said that he saw the problem as basically being that one could get the impression that the whole fanbase is on you when that is not the case.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:24 AM ^
The exact tweet from Mccabe:
The fact that I have iowa fans saying shit (to) me is insane. . . You fans suck. . . Suck a fat one all of you.
http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/247135701.html
yeah, probably a good idea by Fran on this one.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:26 PM ^
pretty much deserved that. Hell, they deserved worse.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:25 AM ^
But probably short sighted. I can see negative recruiting effects very easily. "Don't play for him, he'll take away your twitter". He could have just told them not to tweet at fans. Just like we shouldn't tweet at recruits.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:45 AM ^
But just like telling fans "don't tweet at recruits," telling your players "never tweet at fans" is one of those things that works 99% of the time and totally bites you in the ass the one time it happens, like this.
I think athletes being on twitter is an awful idea. In my younger days, I would have loved to tell a number of athletes how big of a bum he was after a loss, but since I had no way ot doing that, I didn't. I'm not saying it would have been a good idea, but drunk 19 year olds have done worse (myself included). The fact that thousands of Iowa fans have the ability to tell Zach McCabe exactly how they feel after he plays a bad game (or how they feel after a recruit decommits) is ridiculous.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:29 AM ^
douchebag a-holes who would run down their own grandmother in the parking lot if she missed a winning number in a senior center bingo game. Taking that kind of abuse in social media and not responding in kind is something that would test a Buddhist monk, let alone 19-year old kids.
I'm all for athletic departments identifying the worst social media abusers, publishing their names, and if they're ticket holders yanking their ability to purchase tickets for life.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:33 AM ^
I think barring people from getting tickets for life is extremely extreme.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:39 AM ^
I doubtfully doubt that.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:59 AM ^
Why should abuse of student-athletes be tolerated?
Morons like Jeff Orr should be banned from every college arena.
February 26th, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^
Totally warranted for douchey douchebaggery.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:37 AM ^
Me too, but I don't think Alabama much likes the idea of playing in front of an empty stadium.
In all seriousness, it would be a wonderful world if that could happen, I just wonder what a laywer would say about the legal implications of Twitter handing over the email accounts of abusive users for something other than a law-enforcement purpose. I figure you'd have to match email accounts with ones in your ticket database in order to make a program like that happen.
February 26th, 2014 at 2:13 PM ^
I say make the goddamn NSA do something useful with all that data it's collecting.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:30 AM ^
Good. I think even the players should realize that having a twitter account is a bad thing. When you have a good game, sure, it's great to hear the praise, but when you have a bad game, the negative comments from the cowards who hide behind their keyboard could be emotionally damaging to a player, which could affect his play on the court/field/ice.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:31 AM ^
Fran wasn't his coach. Having your fingers removed would hurt like hell.
February 26th, 2014 at 11:34 AM ^
February 26th, 2014 at 11:38 AM ^
I understand they're all college students who want to have twitter like everyone else but it's so very public (which is exactly what they want 99% of the time) and it gives brainless fanboys direct fairly-anonymous access to players and recruits to say things like "YOU SUK DUM@$$!!1"
If college players want twitter, they should have them private which then basically defeats the purpose of twitter
February 26th, 2014 at 11:43 AM ^
Although the players themselves decided to not be on twitter during their tourney run to avoid distractions. When the players are all in on something like this, it can work. When a coach mandates something like this, it could blow up in his face.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:13 PM ^
It isn't that twitter is inherently bad (although it often seems very narcissistic to an oldster like myself.) But I think that other posters above have hit on most of the salient points:
- Some individuals can handle it, some can't.
- You can put up 100 good twitters, but the only one people will remember is the one bad one.
- Public figures are much more targeted. I am not sure I would want to expose players to the excesses of rabid fandom.
There is one other piece to this that is almost inherent in the use of social media and the internet. The medium itself, coupled with a high degree of anonymity, leads to abusive and offensive language and insults. I am not a sociologist nor a researcher, but I have read some things suggesting that posting things, whether via twitter or blogs or texting, leads people to lose the social filters in place for normal discussions. Honestly, if it wasn't for the points, and the vigilence of moderators, the blog here would quickly descend into an unmanageable morass. We've all seen posters insult other posters. We all laugh at the schadenfreude pieces, but there are always a few people who go over the line to the area of personal attack. I think that athletes probably don't want to be exposed to that.
I also think that we forget these are young men, and that the coaches do have some responsibility to protect the athletes in their care.
February 26th, 2014 at 2:17 PM ^
The internet is flypaper for morons.
February 26th, 2014 at 12:13 PM ^
Fuck Twitter
February 26th, 2014 at 12:30 PM ^
I was listening to Stauskas' dad talk to a reporter at Arlington after the Regional Final last year and he said Nik was getting all kinds of crap from supposed Michigan fans during the season last year when he was in his slump. He said it was just ridiculous the negative stuff people were sending him through social media. It really bothered Nik. So I just don't think it is worth it. Too many people are a-holes.