I went to a workshop last month on Coaching and Ethics in Sport and one of the coaches did a presentation on the dangers of social media on the internet. It was a real eye opener for me and I'd like to share with you all some of things I learned at this workshop about student-athletes and coaches websites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and texting. Many colleges coaches have several athletic scholarships they can offer when recruiting. Scholarships today are worth a lot of money, especially full athletic scholarships. Coaches today are doing more interviewing, and background searching on potential student-athletes. Many of the coaches have software capacity to tap into any Facebook or Myspace page. Also, many college admissions offices and employers check Facebook and Myspace accounts. It has now become part of the recruiting process.
Coaches and parents need let their kids know that whatever they post online will stay there forever. Many of the kids think that only a small number of friends are reading their postings but the truth is that their posts are open to the entire world. There was a situation in New Jersey when some football players decided to post their a video tape of their post-game celebration on Youtube and within a few hours those players were punished and suspended from the team by their football coach, and they were suspended from school. They are many more cases out there like this one.
So to all student-athletes out there that work with me be careful when posting on your web pages and also texting. It is worth your while to review all text, posts, and photos that appear online. Think twice before posting anything. You don't want to anything to go against you when an opportunity for a college scholarship arrives at your doorstep.
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