Social media, specifically Twitter, has become main
stream with today’s millennial generation. It is only natural that college
coaches and athletic staffs use this platform to their advantage when
recruiting the next superstar for their athletic program.
The NCAA has rules regarding social media and its
use for recruiting, but the rules do allow for some “loopholes
”.
The NCAA social media rules, which Todd Hefferman
in The
Southern briefly discusses, state that a coach can direct message an
athlete without time or message limits. A coach can also message recruits on
Facebook because the NCAA officially views these messages as emails.
With 130 million active users of twitter, and the
use of social media being incorporated into professional sports by networks
like ESPN, coaches everywhere should be aggressively becoming fluent in this
digital media.
The opportunity to stay in constant contact with
the recruits to make sure they are the program that the athlete chooses is a
huge advantage over schools who are still in the dark when it comes to this new
age recruiting .
Louisiana State University head football coach Les
Miles, known on twitter as @LSUCoachMiles has 125K followers and is an active
user, tweeting over 600 times. In December (2013), he used twitter in a genius
way, sub-tweeting
a recruit during the recruiting dead period.
Social media does seem like a great form of communication when contacting new recruits especially since the kids now days are being raised on this technology. The non-technological generations are going to have to find ways to stay up to speed with these new tactics. I wonder if at some point the NCAA will have to put some type of regulations on this form of contact.
ReplyDeleteSeeing that social media has made such leaps since back when I was in high school, it's totally understandable to use it to recruit. Social media is easy access for coaches and future athletes to keep track of teams that they are interested in. In athletic training social media is only just catching on. I have joined about 3 different Facebook pages related to athletic training and the advancement of this profession and 2 twitter pages. At my former high school athletic training students are choosing to attend a school because the school has an athletic training Facebook or twitter page.
ReplyDelete