What a surprise.
One of the hottest topics in the college football world right now is Twitter. South Carolina, Kansas and Boise State all banned the use of social media by their players. This has caused differing opinions from media members that follow the game.
CNBC’s Darren Rovell was frustrated with the bans saying that the issue isn’t even about free speech. “It’s about proving that the biggest college sports can really be a teaching opportunity instead of just a multi-billion enterprise in which everyone capitalizes except for the kids themselves,” he wrote.
Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports disagrees. “If a college athlete says the wrong thing on Twitter, people like me are going to hear about,” Doyel wrote. “We’re going to talk about it on the radio and write about it in the newspaper or on the Internet.”
Maryland Terps new head football coach Randy Edsall jumped in on the debate in a conversation he had on Washington Post Live. D.C. Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg transcribed the conversation.
“Well, the one thing that I want to do is just get information out about our team and our players, from a recruiting standpoint and also [for] a fan base,” Edsall said. “But for our players, in this day and age, they have to be very very careful, because everybody’s gonna follow them, especially if they’ve got a name to ‘em. And they just can’t react emotionally. They can have things on there about themselves, but be careful of what topics you get into it. And most especially, do not relay anything that goes on in the locker room or the meeting rooms. Stay away from that.”
As Steinberg points out, Edsall himself is on Twitter. In my expert, BSR blogger opinion, I stand by Darren Rovell and Randy Edsall. Let the guys tweet. If they hold a magnifying glass to how stupid they are then shame on them. But you don’t have the right to tell someone when they can and can’t speak publicly.
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