Twitter Usage

[OttoinGrotto]

I just called the compliance office via the number listed on the AD website, and the official position is that it is not OK for anyone outside the coaches (the 10 full-time coaches), or persons with a prior relationship, to recruit a prospect via social media. Period. Booster or not, irrelevant, because only the coaches can do this.

That is exactly what the compliance office should say.

Weird you're going to these lengths.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

 

[javadoc]

I also recommend not beating a dead horse!

It's winding down, no worries.

Hehheh, the next step is to consider where it leads. Haven't started on that horse yet, but if you think about it for a couple minutes, there is a fascinating question about how what it means to be a "good fan" will be impacted by these changes.

 

[TheCusian]

Tone? I think my tone is even-handed. I would imagine that the line of questioning is the issue. I simply can't believe what I am seeing. I am genuinely confused by the fact pattern I see.

There are NCAA rules that regulate recruiting activities that are plainly interpretable, even to a layman.
NCAA member institutions have compliance departments that have policies regarding those rules.
Fans across the country, including ours, are being told not to do something, because it is a violation, plain and simple - and the response is, ! Try to catch me. Or, the rule is stupid and shouldn't be followed. Or, everyone is doing it.

I have never seen a case where a clear NCAA rule that would seem to be fairly important historically, is suddenly being violated wantonly. I do not understand, and am not entirely comfortable with, the aura of lawlessness that has taken hold.

My acute concern is that we are an easy target.

Look - it's not a rule that's "fairly important historically" until it's tied to gifts, favors, etc. It's a gray area for all of the reasons posted. You've made some great points, did your homework - but the NCAA is still working it all out - obviously. The trend seems to be to not care about tweets - but to take down the major infractions (Miami, OSU, etc). There is clearly some risk involved - but it's shared risk amongst most of the member institutions.

 

[javadoc]

Look - it's not a rule that's "fairly important historically" until it's tied to gifts, favors, etc. It's a gray area for all of the reasons posted. You've made some great points, did your homework - but the NCAA is still working it all out - obviously. The trend seems to be to not care about tweets - but to take down the major infractions (Miami, OSU, etc). There is clearly some risk involved - but it's shared risk amongst most of the member institutions.

Good response. That is the summation I am most comfortable with.

 

[alphaorange]

I have no dog on this fight since I don't do the social media thingy, but I have some honest questions: Consider the fan that is young and very much the fan of school A. He does not participate in online forums but he does follow twitter, Facebook, etc. He becomes a hardcore twitter freak of recruits. At what point is he unable to do so without impunity? When he goes to a game? When he buys a ticket? When he becomes a donor? To me it's a very interesting situation. Does SU have to hire person to scour the web for all tweeters that mention SU and then send them a message saying they may be hurting the school by their actions? To me there are a couple of serious questions, some of which have been addressed. What defines a booster? How do we verify the person using social media is really a fan (booster) of a particular school? Why (how) is the school responsible for people that have not been informed, how and why would they be expected to be informed, and how would the school know? This has gotten absolutely crazy...

 

[PhatOrange]

Let's see what happens. The article said that Texas Tech was investigating blah blah blah. If they self-report a minor violation, what then? The NCAA generally lets the school investigate first and self-report, so it's not surprising that there has been no sanction from on high yet.

Syracuse could have self-reported as well. Same with Rutgers. And both schools could've sent their athlete alumni emails blasts warning them to refrain. This is still a huge learning curve for everybody involved.

They may have self-reported on White and told him to cool it when he made reference to Dawson's Creek television show. I think his twitter has been pretty quiet since then.

But honestly, this stuff with Syracuse is right in our face because we're following it. It's really not that over the top. Our twitter 'army' is probably the smallest around. I remember Iowa fans blowing up that linebacker's twitter last year. But the NCAA doesn't have a clue unless someone snitches. It's definitely not beneath coaches (see Urban Meyer) to snitch but you better be squeaky clean when you do and there is nobody clean when it comes to twitter.

 

[money3189]

Look - it's not a rule that's "fairly important historically" until it's tied to gifts, favors, etc. It's a gray area for all of the reasons posted. You've made some great points, did your homework - but the NCAA is still working it all out - obviously. The trend seems to be to not care about tweets - but to take down the major infractions (Miami, OSU, etc). There is clearly some risk involved - but it's shared risk amongst most of the member institutions.

Exactly. I understand people are going to be cautious about this and I understand why some of you may worry a little bit, its new to a lot of you. But I think some of you are being over cautious. Until someone goes over the top I dont think you should worry. This is no different than a fan rooting for a player or a fan saying GO Cuse to a recruit during the spring game. The recruit is not going to go the that school because a random crazy fan said so. lol. Now if that fan/booster pulls the recruit to the side and gives him money, food and other benefits, thats different. That kind of influence can make a kid change his mind about a particular school. Especially if he knows that he will get treated like that throughout his time there. You have to have a long and powerful relationship with a kid in order to influence his decision. Not a twitter or face book relationship. If you go up to one of these recruits or current players and I say Im your face book friend and I follow you on twitter and think you have a strong relationship with them , they will laugh in your face.

 

[tep624]

I think some people are confusing what has come from White via twitter in regards to stirring up the army and what has come from AJ Long. A lot of the "cuse nation show them what we got" stuff is coming from our current verbals, not from White.

Which brings an interesting side point - what are the rules in regards to a currently verballed recruit to a school recruiting other prospects to that school? Especially those that they don't have a prior relationship with?

 

[SUFaninNJ]

I think some people are confusing what has come from White via twitter in regards to stirring up the army and what has come from AJ Long. A lot of the "cuse nation show them what we got" stuff is coming from our current verbals, not from White.

Which brings an interesting side point - what are the rules in regards to a currently verballed recruit to a school recruiting other prospects to that school? Especially those that they don't have a prior relationship with?

A verbal is non-binding, so I don't think there'd be a problem. That being said, this is the NCAA we're talking about.

 

[javadoc]

I think some people are confusing what has come from White via twitter in regards to stirring up the army and what has come from AJ Long. A lot of the "cuse nation show them what we got" stuff is coming from our current verbals, not from White.

Which brings an interesting side point - what are the rules in regards to a currently verballed recruit to a school recruiting other prospects to that school? Especially those that they don't have a prior relationship with?

I'm not sure. By the letter of the law it would seem that they can't do it, but in this case it seems like it should be 100% kosher. Even if the NCAA wanted to keep boosters at bay, I would amend the rule so that recruits themselves can talk to other recruits via any medium. Opens a little loophole maybe, in that coaches could have recruits "do their dirty work", but I'm not sure that is even a risk. The trend seems to be kids talking to other kids, so get your information out to your primary prospects and let them run with it.

For instance, (were it truly 100% legit) it would be great for AJ Long, of his own volition, to talk to guys we might not even be recruiting to inform them of some of our history that they might now know. Would be great for the coaches to get a call "out of the blue" from someone they thought off the radar.

 

[Texas Otto]

I think some people are confusing what has come from White via twitter in regards to stirring up the army and what has come from AJ Long. A lot of the "cuse nation show them what we got" stuff is coming from our current verbals, not from White.

Which brings an interesting side point - what are the rules in regards to a currently verballed recruit to a school recruiting other prospects to that school? Especially those that they don't have a prior relationship with?

A current recruit can recruit other players as much as they want as until they formally sign or enroll they are not officially part of the University. My daughters coach asks her to evaluate and recruit new players he is interested in from LHGCL all the time sincebefore she enrolled as a first year and she was successful in bringing in an additional girl from her class last year

 

[CU44SE]

I think its really funny that the NCAA is worried about twitter when there are so many other things going on in recruiting. I was talking with a family member who is good friends with someone who plays at a prominent D1 Football program and an interesting thing that was broached was money. I guess one of the big things right now is players are working at restaurants and recruiters and boosters are leaving them big fat tips. Technically, it is not against the rules. Also this player is not from a very wealthy family, yet he flys cross country multiple times a year and is now rolling around in nice stuff when everyone knows he would not be able to afford that kind of stuff. Recruiting and big college athletics is extremely shady, yet the NCAA is worried about twitter.

 

[javadoc]

I guess one of the big things right now is players are working at restaurants and recruiters and boosters are leaving them big fat tips. Technically, it is not against the rules.

That is awesome. From 2007:

http://diverseeducation.com/article/7463/

The argument can be made that it is against the rules. First, the athlete is being placed in a position where a booster is authorized to give money directly to the prospect. Doesn't matter if it's a tip for services otherwise rendered. Second, if the athlete is reporting his tips (as he is supposed to do) then you can verify whether he is being paid commensurately with others in his industry. If he's not reporting his tips and we're talking big bucks, then he has bigger problems, with the IRS.

 

[anomander]

I just called the compliance office via the number listed on the AD website, and the official position is that it is not OK for anyone outside the coaches (the 10 full-time coaches), or persons with a prior relationship, to recruit a prospect via social media. Period. Booster or not, irrelevant, because only the coaches can do this.

what did you think the compliance office was going to tell you?

As far as having 10 staff members recruiting, Alabama has 20 paid coaches. Obviously these other 10 aren't listed as coaches, but they are just like Eric White, except there are 10 of them. The whole SEC operates the same way. And if you are confused with what you are seeing on twitter from our fan base it's obvious you haven't been following national recruiting since twitter was invented. It's common place for fan bases to do what we are doing. When Dillon Bates committed to Tennessee he had a total of 7,000 retweets/favorites/comments. When KJ Williams committed he had a total of 500. What we are doing is on such a smaller scale if a big time BCS programs fan base were to read this thread Syracuse would be laughed right out of the ACC.

Welcome to big boy football

 

[BlackKnight76]

I think its really funny that the NCAA is worried about twitter when there are so many other things going on in recruiting. I was talking with a family member who is good friends with someone who plays at a prominent D1 Football program and an interesting thing that was broached was money. I guess one of the big things right now is players are working at restaurants and recruiters and boosters are leaving them big fat tips. Technically, it is not against the rules. Also this player is not from a very wealthy family, yet he flys cross country multiple times a year and is now rolling around in nice stuff when everyone knows he would not be able to afford that kind of stuff. Recruiting and big college athletics is extremely shady, yet the NCAA is worried about twitter.

That's a new one...also completely not shocking.

 

[Toga]

In keeping with the new tradition established by T-Mark, I am going to start physically stalking recruits.

 

[anomander]

i have a feeling the staff is thoroughly documenting exactly what they are doing on twitter.

the only way the NCAA could possibly monitor this would be punishing the player. sure you aren't going to stop fans from tweeting at players, but a players eligibility could be put up to question if he acknowledges (follow/retweet/favorite/reply) the fan . that way there will be no communication from fans on a prospects timeline. otherwise there is no way to police this, absolutely none.

to be on an even playing field i am happy to see the fan base getting involved. until the ncaa takes a solid stance i hope i continue to see it.

 

[Orangepace]

Just saw this thread. Regardless of what White is asking people to do, SU has asked us and all fans NOT to engage recruits via social media because it is a violation. Anyone associated with this site that is violating SU's request and the rule, will be banned. Some already have been and a few are on thin ice and will likely be banned soon. If you disagree with this, take it up with the SU Athletic and Compliance departments.


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What's one have to do with the other? Why ban on a message board? I don't tweet, but don't see the linkage really.

 

[Orangepace]

Im going to buy season tickets to buttgers this year, register at their rvls site, put an R sticker on my truck and will start tweeting every recruit under the sun. Maybe I can get them in trouble.

At the least, you'll be banned from their message boards...:noidea:

 

[javadoc]

what did you think the compliance office was going to tell you?

As far as having 10 staff members recruiting, Alabama has 20 paid coaches. Obviously these other 10 aren't listed as coaches, but they are just like Eric White, except there are 10 of them. The whole SEC operates the same way. And if you are confused with what you are seeing on twitter from our fan base it's obvious you haven't been following national recruiting since twitter was invented. It's common place for fan bases to do what we are doing. When Dillon Bates committed to Tennessee he had a total of 7,000 retweets/favorites/comments. When KJ Williams committed he had a total of 500. What we are doing is on such a smaller scale if a big time BCS programs fan base were to read this thread Syracuse would be laughed right out of the ACC.

Welcome to big boy football

I expected the compliance office to tell me what their official policy was. How they interpreted the NCAA rules, what they were telling the coaches and (presumably) boosters. That was the whole point of this thread, because I saw a disconnect between what was (presumably - I didn't know) the stated policy, and what they were allowing to happen.

What I think some have missed is that I am not (in general) saying anything about the wisdom of the rules. The original line of inquiry was only dealing with what is on the NCAA rulebooks. I don't care what is happening elsewhere. I recognize that this is an area about which there is genuine uncertainty, but the rules seem pretty cut and dried to me as they exist now, so your comment "Welcome to big boy football" is exactly what worries me. Because it translates as, "It may be against the rules, but everyone else is doing it, and finally we are too." That was not a place I ever wanted to see our program go.

It's a minor issue, according to many here. Compared to paying players and such, it is, sure. But if our personnel are willing to transgress on this issue, we have to trust that they are good enough men not to break the big rules as well. If we could pay players the way they do in the SEC and get away with it, would you want us to do that as well, to punch our ticket to "big boy football?"

 

[tep624]

Opens a little loophole maybe, in that coaches could have recruits "do their dirty work"

That's more or less where I was going with my question. Coaching staffs have pretty strict rules in regards to contact periods, currently verballed recruits don't to my knowledge. If anything I think it gives incentive to programs to speed up the recruiting cycle, because the more bodies they have verballed, the more potential "recruiters" they have. It's a pretty big loophole if you ask me.

 

[anomander]

I expected the compliance office to tell me what their official policy was. How they interpreted the NCAA rules, what they were telling the coaches and (presumably) boosters. That was the whole point of this thread, because I saw a disconnect between what was (presumably - I didn't know) the stated policy, and what they were allowing to happen.

What I think some have missed is that I am not (in general) saying anything about the wisdom of the rules. The original line of inquiry was only dealing with what is on the NCAA rulebooks. I don't care what is happening elsewhere. I recognize that this is an area about which there is genuine uncertainty, but the rules seem pretty cut and dried to me as they exist now, so your comment "Welcome to big boy football" is exactly what worries me. Because it translates as, "It may be against the rules, but everyone else is doing it, and finally we are too." That was not a place I ever wanted to see our program go.

It's a minor issue, according to many here. Compared to paying players and such, it is, sure. But if our personnel are willing to transgress on this issue, we have to trust that they are good enough men not to break the big rules as well. If we could pay players the way they do in the SEC and get away with it, would you want us to do that as well, to punch our ticket to "big boy football?"

Not at all. I would not want our program stoop to that level, or be like UF, even if they did win 2 BCS titles (well maybe..), but i think there is a huge difference between the 2. Paying players is down right dirty CHEATING that you have full control over. What fans do over twitter, that for the most part is out of your control, isn't even in the same ballpark. I have full confidence in HCSS standards, and I fully trust we would never get to that level of desperation. I feel we are getting double our money with the current twitter actions. 1 it is helping even the playing field where twitter recruitment is concerned, and 2 it is actually getting some community excitement behind the program, something that is sorely needed, especially with the younger generation (the tweeters).

Trust me I thought the whole thing was stupid, and didn't have an effect when I first started seeing it on the national recruiting scene a few years ago. But once I started seeing interview after interview where our recruits were saying they would see more "love" from other schools I started to accept it's importance. Like I said before I am perfectly fine with what I am seeing on twitter, and until the NCAA takes a solid stance on it, I hope it continues because those interviews are now in our favor.

 

[Orangepace]

Preface: I don't tweet recruits. Not my thing.

By tweeting someone, aren't you effectively tweeting the world, however, it just happens to be on someone's page? I liken tweeting at someone to bumping into them... By doing it in an open forum it's no different because all get to see what the interaction consists of. In that sense, I don't think it violates any recruiting rules.

When a person DM's through twitter or some other social media, the conversation now exists purely between 2 people. In that sense I would think DM'ing is truly the violation because you're directly in contact. This is different from tweeting on an open page, because the tweeter is effectively communicating with more than just a recruit and is actually just speaking at a recruit and other people.

Still, why would the mods of this site feel the need to police against personas who tweet a recruit in the open forum? If you can devise a way to crack down on members of this forum who DM a recruit, I stand behind that. I also am fine with a mod of the board openly posting a banner on the board stating their position. But to crack down and BAN members of a forum is somewhat ridiculous.

This is a forum, not an open community. The mods were not voted in by the forum members. I may be wrong, but I didn't get the impression that joining this forum meant that I essentially was bowing down to those in power. I joined with the impression that I was an equal with a mod, however, they were mods because they prefer to keep the forum clean (no open distasteful remarks or attacks) and lively. In return for all the members being here, the mods are able to generate traffic and post ads to cover the costs. I never had a vote on the ads that constantly pop up in the corners of the forum, nor would I want to, hence I am ok with the mods being mods. But to think I may have to beg a mod at any point in time to be here is just ridiculous.

If this forum is going to turn down this path, I'm seriously going to have to re-evaluate my priorities here because I don't believe the mods have the authority to be policing members of a forum.

 

[leftytg]

Not at all. I would not want our program stoop to that level, or be like UF, even if they did win 2 BCS titles (well maybe..), but i think there is a huge difference between the 2. Paying players is down right dirty CHEATING that you have full control over. What fans do over twitter, that for the most part is out of your control, isn't even in the same ballpark. I have full confidence in HCSS standards, and I fully trust we would never get to that level of desperation. I feel we are getting double our money with the current twitter actions. 1 it is helping even the playing field where twitter recruitment is concerned, and 2 it is actually getting some community excitement behind the program, something that is sorely needed, especially with the younger generation (the tweeters).

Trust me I thought the whole thing was stupid, and didn't have an effect when I first started seeing it on the national recruiting scene a few years ago. But once I started seeing interview after interview where our recruits were saying they would see more "love" from other schools I started to accept it's importance. Like I said before I am perfectly fine with what I am seeing on twitter, and until the NCAA takes a solid stance on it, I hope it continues because those interviews are now in our favor.

I agree with your line of reasoning in this thread. It seems obvious that the NCAA crafted these rules about booster contact during recruiting in a pre-Twitter world. Twitter has exploded on the scene and has been quickly adopted, especially by the younger generations (lets face it, the NCAA honchos aren't exactly wet behind the ears). Before Twitter, the masses did not have access to recruits, so the NCAA regulations and definitions of who is a booster made sense. In the post Twitter reality, the masses and the recruits can interact freely in the massive chatroom that is Twitter. It makes the pre-Twitter NCAA regulations and definitions obsolete and effectively unenforceable.

As mentioned by Anomander in the post I quoted, when it comes to coaches and their contact with recruits, the NCAA can reasonably expect certain rules and standards to be met and enforced (although this has proven slippery on its own). In the old days, it was reasonable to expect a school to keep a leash on some of their high rolling, passionate, very involved boosters and imputed knowledge of their impermissible actions to the school. But now? How in the world could any reasonable person conclude that ANY school could possibly keep a leash on Twitter participants? Especially when recruits often solicit the attention? It is simply laughably absurd to think the NCAA could possibly try to regulate and enforce bans on fans tweeting at recruits. We literally would be in a world where each and every member institution would have sanctions/be on probation. Even if, hypothetically, a school wielded such control as to prevent their entire fan base from tweeting at recruits, rival fans could easily create dummy accounts and make violations on behalf of the school. The NCAA ALREADY is woefully understaffed when it comes to monitoring and enforcement. Monitoring the Twitter feeds of each recruited athlete would take a ridiculous amount of manpower, not to mention the fact that the NCAA lacks subpoena power or other mechanisms to uncover the real names and addresses of the anonymous hordes of fans who tweet at recruits.

In short, this whole thing is just a charade. The NCAA knows it can't enforce these overly broad and now outdated and obsolete definitions of booster, which include Twitter activity by random fans toward recruits. This is obvious by their lack of action in the face of widespread overwhelming activity by fans of schools all across the country. That the NCAA is slow to update or change the regulation should come as no surprise. Institutions such as the NCAA are not known for their speed at adaption. The hand wringing in this thread is overwrought and seems to stem from the fact that somehow the NCAA will turn a blind eye toward the Twitter activity of every other school's fan base but will hammer Syracuse with sanctions. Frankly, that idea is nothing short of paranoid.

For those arguing "rules are rules", to me, this is more akin to those dumb outdated laws that are technically still on the books but are widely ignored for obvious reasons. For instance, in Eureka, Nevada it is illegal for men who have mustaches to kiss women. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumb_laws I somehow doubt we'd have an impassioned plea of "its the law, if you don't follow this one well, how do we know we're not going to allow murder next?" The NCAA's overly broad definition of booster is as outdated and unenforceable as this Eureka, Nevada law.

 

[bnoro]

*walks in, sees someone actually called the compliance department*