In The Public Eye

We live in an age where nothing is really private anymore, especially with the way the Internet dominates our lives. In our world, it’s not just think before you speak or act; it’s think before you type or post.

Athletic departments and college athletic communications professionals everywhere are forced to recognize the reality that, with the prominence of Facebook and Twitter in the lives of their student-athletes, comes the fact that a school’s image is at stake each time these young men or women updates their status or posts a photo album.

CoSIDA recently highlighted several instances where Facebook posts came back to haunt an athletic department, and the solutions some schools have come up with to solve this problem.

Athletic director Tom Osborne instituted a program at the University of Nebraska called UDiligence in which social networking by student-athletes is automatically tracked and e-mail alerts are sent to Nebraska coaches and administrators went inappropriate posts have been flagged.

Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne has taken a proactive approach to monitoring his student-athletes' social media use. Photo courtesy of Scout.com.

Not surprisingly, some student-athletes balked at the thought of their “private lives” being so closely monitored by the athletic department. I think this is a brilliant move by Nebraska, though, because the truth of the matter is, nothing is private on the Internet.

Being a student-athlete is a lot like holding a student job. More likely than not, if you post something incriminating on your Twitter and your boss finds out, you’re going to have to face the consequences. The same thinking should apply to student-athletes.

In many ways, these young men and women are the faces of their schools. They hold the school’s image in their hands, and they can easily tarnish it by not using their heads. Consider the shame brought on to the Kansas athletic department when basketball player Tyshawn Taylor bragged about getting into a physical altercation with several of the school’s football players via Facebook.

It’s not just about protecting an athletic department’s image, though. They call these men and women student-athletes for a reason; they’ve come to school to learn in addition to competing. I think more athletic departments need to follow the lead of Nebraska and better educate student-athletes about how to responsibly use tools like Facebook and Twitter.

These social networking sites can be either helpful – or hurtful – to their own personal images when it comes time to find a job when their collegiate careers have ended. It’s really up to the athletic departments to educate and the student-athletes to use the knowledge wisely when it comes to social networking.

Tags: Athletic Communications, College athletics, CoSIDA, Facebook, social networking, Sports Media, Tom Osborne, Twitter, UDiligence, University of Nebraska