Twitter Usage

[GoCuse44]

Who cares about the use of twitter by the staff and fans. Oregon was found have committed "major" recruiting violations by the NCAA and received a huge penalty. They lost one yes ONE scholarship.

Marrone was disgusted by the way the NCAA was handling John Raymon's appeal last year and now we all know why. If Raymon applied to Alabama or another SEC school mark my words he would have played last season. On a positive note Marrone said at the luncheons that John Raymon was the best defensive lineman on the team so we are in store for a treat this season watching him play.

The NCAA is a friggin joke.

 

[Full_Rebar]

First, I repeat. I have in no way contacted recruits, through the use of social media or otherwise. I do have season tickets and am a donor. i have never seen a mailing about compliance.

Next, yes the rules don't apply to fans. If I break a rule, I don't pay fines, nor am I subject to any criminal proceedings. As such, it doesn't apply to me other than through being a fan of the program. They can yank my season tickets, can ban me from games/campus and could sue me for damages, though it'd be a waste of their time, money. Those to who it applies are the only ones that will feel the heavy consequences, the program.

Thanks for not addressing the point I was arguing though.

People have been "disassociated" from the University before for violations of NCAA rules (like Chris Webber at Michigan) so there are still consequences for fans. They can and will pursue action as it shows the NCAA a proper response of institutional control.

 

[Orangepace]

People have been "disassociated" from the University before for violations of NCAA rules (like Chris Webber at Michigan) so there are still consequences for fans. They can and will pursue action as it shows the NCAA a proper response of institutional control.

Right. But that doesn't exactly impact my life the way these guys are trying to portray. The compliance dept didn't ask our mods to research those tweeting and ban them. I'm very against bullying. I don't agree with the mods of this site bullying any which way. It would be obnoxious for me to standby and watch it happen without voicing my disapproval.

 

[rrlbees]

Right. But that doesn't exactly impact my life the way these guys are trying to portray. The compliance dept didn't ask our mods to research those tweeting and ban them. I'm very against bullying. I don't agree with the mods of this site bullying any which way. It would be obnoxious for me to standby and watch it happen without voicing my disapproval.

Nobodies bullying anyone. This isn't grade school. We don't condone it and this site isn't going to be associated with people who can't abide by what both the NCAA and SU says is improper even if it appears as a silly rule.


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[JeremyCuse]

Nobodies bullying anyone. This isn't grade school. We don't condone it and this site isn't going to be associated with people who can't abide by what both the NCAA and SU says is improper even if it appears as a silly rule.


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Seriously this isnt rocket science, the mods including Bees have made it clear they dont want people on this board tweeting recruits period. If you want to do it on your own and keep it of this board go right ahead but its been made pretty clear if you post about tweeting recruits here your going to be banned.

 

[tep624]

Seriously this isnt rocket science, the mods including Bees have made it clear they dont want people on this board tweeting recruits period. If you want to do it on your own and keep it of this board go right ahead but its been made pretty clear if you post about tweeting recruits here your going to be banned.

The mods do a ton of work to make this site go, and if they feel its their job to respect the wishes of the Syracuse administration that have been communicated to them directly, then that's their prerogative and they are entitled to it. And quite frankly, the fact that some posters here can't be respectful of that is pretty ridiculous in light of all the work they do and time they put in to this site.

 

[retro44]

People have been "disassociated" from the University before for violations of NCAA rules (like Chris Webber at Michigan) so there are still consequences for fans. They can and will pursue action as it shows the NCAA a proper response of institutional control.

are you a teacher from Pa.

 

[Full_Rebar]

Nope. Just a fan of a former Cuse DL from Lackawanna County

 

[cuseinchina]

I think it's clear that the most likely outcome here is that the NCAA is going to crack down on random fans sending twitter messages to potential recruits, consequently ever major D-1 program will lose all their scholarships until this egregious conduct by fans can be stopped. time to start placing bets on America East teams since they will of course be taking all the recruits in the northeast with all these penalties coming down. Additionally, the NCAA will surely engage the help of the NSA to correctly figure out if a tweeter really is a fan of a particular school or if in fact they are covertly working on behalf of a competitor school - whichever team the fan is found to support will be subject to severe penalty. Moreover if the NSA (or google's security agents, whoever is enlisted to help police the particular crim in question) finds that someone has tweeted who in 1974 gave $50 to the football team they support - that person will be subject to a lifetime ban from watching college football - whether live or on ESPN as the channel will be summarily blocked, it goes without saying that their twitter privileges shall be immediately revoked...and of course any t-shirt, hat, sweatpants, or tattoos displaying the name of an ncaa affiliated institution will be confiscated and appropriately disposed of. THIS WILL BE STOPPED!

. sorry, i find this whole thing to be entirely without logic. We have coaches enlisting the help of 'orange nations' 'twitter army', we have fans from every program in the country engaging in the exact same activity, and there is no realistic way of policing the activity based on volume and no reason to police it based on impact or intent (eg no money changing hands). I am sure the NCAA will come up with rules that dictate what coaches can and can't do in the age of social media, and that will be welcome. the rest of this is pure speculative nonsense an has no basis in reality. The ncaa wants to avoid boosters giving athletes money or promising them things...period. They can't even close a 5 year investigation of Miami, how anyone thinks they have a chance of stopping fans from tweeting is beyond me. I don't think they are silly enough to try.

 

[Camillus]

After wading through 6 pages of this thread I have come to the following conclusions: 1. I am now hungry and have to poo. 2. I support this site's decision to create whatever rules they find appropriate. 3. I support positive tweeting of potential recruits for the good of SU. 4. If I ever decide to check out twitter and tweet a potential recruit, I will not post about it here.

 

[javadoc]

This whole thing is just a silly tap dance that everyone knows is silly, but has to do because change with the NCAA moves at a glacier pace.

- Syracuse University cannot stop any individual fans from tweeting at recruits. The NCAA knows this and knows they can't punish schools for things wholly, entirely out of their control.
- Because of this, the NCAA throws its hands up in the air and say it is up to each member institution to enforce the ban. The NCAA doesn't even try to stop it themselves.
- Ergo, Syracuse University has to publicly say "tsk tsk tsk please stop" to appease the NCAA, while in reality they know they can't stop anyone and honestly, they kinda like the fact that the fan base is showing love to recruits.
- As evidenced by the complete and total lack of NCAA action on the part of fans tweeting at recruits, the NCAA is satisfied with this fiction.

It is silly. The whole thing is just a charade. The sensible thing to do would be to just amend the definition of booster to not include random fans without any kind of meaningful, influential connection to the program and exclude Twitter messages. But the NCAA has chosen to ignore their own rules instead of changing them. So be it. But all the controversy and gnashing of teeth about this on the forum is overwrought.

For the record, I have never so much as followed a recruit on Twitter let alone even considered tweeting at one. It just isn't my thing. But, as a fan of the program who wants to see them recruit as well as possible, I'm glad those people do exist.

Great responses, probably spot-on as a practical analysis. Question:

(An aside first: I think the booster issue is actually a distraction. For the sake of clarity, when I called the SU compliance office, I asked what their policy was about fans tweeting football recruits. I double-checked by asking if it was even forbidden for just a current SU student who does nothing more than go to the games. The point that the guy made repeatedly was not an attempt to parse the definition of booster, it was that NCAA rules allow only the 10 paid full-time coaches to recruit, including via written materials. To your point about changing the rules, the NCAA viewed as some abstract quasi-governmental agency, separate from the members, isn't the issue. They were all set to amend that recruiting rule to allow other staff members to participate in recruiting this Spring. Then some of the membership raised their hands to slow things down. So we can blame "the NCAA," but we should keep in mind that in some cases it is our peer institutions that are holding up change.)

With regard the to the enforceability issue, do you think your analysis holds for snail mail sent to prospects' home addresses? Assume that people don't sign it, don't include return addresses, etc. if necessary.

 

[cuseinchina]

Great responses, probably spot-on as a practical analysis. Question:

(An aside first: I think the booster issue is actually a distraction. For the sake of clarity, when I called the SU compliance office, I asked what their policy was about fans tweeting football recruits. I double-checked by asking if it was even forbidden for just a current SU student who does nothing more than go to the games. The point that the guy made repeatedly was not an attempt to parse the definition of booster, it was that NCAA rules allow only the 10 paid full-time coaches to recruit, including via written materials. To your point about changing the rules, the NCAA viewed as some abstract quasi-governmental agency, separate from the members, isn't the issue. They were all set to amend that recruiting rule to allow other staff members to participate in recruiting this Spring. Then some of the membership raised their hands to slow things down. So we can blame "the NCAA," but we should keep in mind that in some cases it is our peer institutions that are holding up change.)

With regard the to the enforceability issue, do you think your analysis holds for snail mail sent to prospects' home addresses? Assume that people don't sign it, don't include return addresses, etc. if necessary.

One can safely assume that if recruits were receiving thousands of unsigned letters from fans of many different schools hoping said recruit will attend the school they support, that the NCAA would have very little recourse to do anything about it simply because of the volume involved. They would not be likely to care anyway since no money or promises were exchanged. Now if you have one letter and you can clearly tell its from a booster promising something - then you have an issue.

 

[leftytg]

Great responses, probably spot-on as a practical analysis. Question:

With regard the to the enforceability issue, do you think your analysis holds for snail mail sent to prospects' home addresses? Assume that people don't sign it, don't include return addresses, etc. if necessary.

I don't see how the analysis would change. I think we can all acknowledge the unlikelihood of random fans sending copious amounts of snail mail to a recruit's home (for a number of reasons - people are lazy, tracking down addresses is work, not to mention if the address is unlisted, stamps cost money, etc). Twitter is unique because it is essentially effortless, costs nothing, and you get the gratification of seeing the recruit interact with you.

To spell it out better, I have no issue with the NCAA regulating the contact coaching staffs can have. That seems fair game to me. My issue is the insanely overbroad definition they use to determine if someone is a booster. There is nothing against the NCAA rulebook about a fan tweeting a recruit. The NCAA bars boosters from tweeting at recruits. The problem is that, by the lunacy of the NCAA's definition of booster, pretty much anyone with a pulse who is also a fan amounts to a booster. I'd like to see the NCAA tighten up the definition of booster to include only those who have close ties to the school/program.

I'm not going to take this off subject and start a debate on where that line should be and who should/shouldn't be considered a booster. I'm simply saying that Joe Schmoe Syracuse fan who is part of a fan website, like this one, shouldn't be considered a booster.

 

[javadoc]

I don't see how the analysis would change. I think we can all acknowledge the unlikelihood of random fans sending copious amounts of snail mail to a recruit's home (for a number of reasons - people are lazy, tracking down addresses is work, not to mention if the address is unlisted, stamps cost money, etc). Twitter is unique because it is essentially effortless, costs nothing, and you get the gratification of seeing the recruit interact with you.

To spell it out better, I have no issue with the NCAA regulating the contact coaching staffs can have. That seems fair game to me. My issue is the insanely overbroad definition they use to determine if someone is a booster. There is nothing against the NCAA rulebook about a fan tweeting a recruit. The NCAA bars boosters from tweeting at recruits. The problem is that, by the lunacy of the NCAA's definition of booster, pretty much anyone with a pulse who is also a fan amounts to a booster. I'd like to see the NCAA tighten up the definition of booster to include only those who have close ties to the school/program.

I'm not going to take this off subject and start a debate on where that line should be and who should/shouldn't be considered a booster. I'm simply saying that Joe Schmoe Syracuse fan who is part of a fan website, like this one, shouldn't be considered a booster.

Agree that it is unlikely that people are going to start sending snail mail to recruits' homes. Curious how much it has happened, but not curious enough to spend any more time looking.

One quibble, though: while I agree that the definition of booster is probably out of whack, the linchpin definition is "recruiting" I think. The bylaws state that only the coaches are allowed to recruit, but it also (redundantly?) then goes into verbiage about boosters and what is forbidden to them. I don't know if they intended the booster stuff simply to reinforce the fact that they were aiming primarily at (common-sense) boosters and improper inducements, because a broad definition of recruiting would make all the booster language superfluous.

So a proper definition of recruiting might untangle the mess. Make it something that takes into account an offer of value made to the recruit, which the offerer either has to act to accomplish himself or through an agent, or which he is in a unique position to provide. So coaches recruit when they try to persuade someone to accept a scholarship. Boosters recruit when they offer cash, jobs, homes for family members, etc. Offers of sexual favors would similarly be considered recruiting, but highly doubt that anything would be done in that regard. Although I think the NCAA poked about in that matter in the Colorado case a while back.

Tweeting, writing snail mail, etc. wouldn't be considered recruiting, because all a general fan can say is, "I recommend you go to Syracuse, for the following reasons." No offer of value to change hands. Might not even need amending, as it seems pretty general, common-sense, and flexible going forward.

 

[Upstate]

This whole thing is just a silly tap dance that everyone knows is silly, but has to do because change with the NCAA moves at a glacier pace.

- Syracuse University cannot stop any individual fans from tweeting at recruits. The NCAA knows this and knows they can't punish schools for things wholly, entirely out of their control.
- Because of this, the NCAA throws its hands up in the air and say it is up to each member institution to enforce the ban. The NCAA doesn't even try to stop it themselves.
- Ergo, Syracuse University has to publicly say "tsk tsk tsk please stop" to appease the NCAA, while in reality they know they can't stop anyone and honestly, they kinda like the fact that the fan base is showing love to recruits.
- As evidenced by the complete and total lack of NCAA action on the part of fans tweeting at recruits, the NCAA is satisfied with this fiction.

It is silly. The whole thing is just a charade. The sensible thing to do would be to just amend the definition of booster to not include random fans without any kind of meaningful, influential connection to the program and exclude Twitter messages. But the NCAA has chosen to ignore their own rules instead of changing them. So be it. But all the controversy and gnashing of teeth about this on the forum is overwrought.

For the record, I have never so much as followed a recruit on Twitter let alone even considered tweeting at one. It just isn't my thing. But, as a fan of the program who wants to see them recruit as well as possible, I'm glad those people do exist.

So very true, yet they yell "Get 'dem hashtags off your fields and courts" as if they really, really care.

 

[leftytg]

Agree that it is unlikely that people are going to start sending snail mail to recruits' homes. Curious how much it has happened, but not curious enough to spend any more time looking.

One quibble, though: while I agree that the definition of booster is probably out of whack, the linchpin definition is "recruiting" I think. The bylaws state that only the coaches are allowed to recruit, but it also (redundantly?) then goes into verbiage about boosters and what is forbidden to them. I don't know if they intended the booster stuff simply to reinforce the fact that they were aiming primarily at (common-sense) boosters and improper inducements, because a broad definition of recruiting would make all the booster language superfluous.

So a proper definition of recruiting might untangle the mess. Make it something that takes into account an offer of value made to the recruit, which the offerer either has to act to accomplish himself or through an agent, or which he is in a unique position to provide. So coaches recruit when they try to persuade someone to accept a scholarship. Boosters recruit when they offer cash, jobs, homes for family members, etc. Offers of sixual favors would similarly be considered recruiting, but highly doubt that anything would be done in that regard. Although I think the NCAA poked about in that matter in the Colorado case a while back.

Tweeting, writing snail mail, etc. wouldn't be considered recruiting, because all a general fan can say is, "I recommend you go to Syracuse, for the following reasons." No offer of value to change hands. Might not even need amending, as it seems pretty general, common-sense, and flexible going forward.

well said. You're right, I was focused on a broad definition of booster. What you said makes perfect sense to me, as well, in that a more realistic, common sense end is realized with a tighter definition of what constitutes recruiting.