Educating student-athletes about the proper use of social media is a focal point for many high school athletic programs across the country. Much attention has been payed to how our high school students communicate with the outside world. Whether it is personal Twitter accounts or internet message boards, the digital universe has opened up a cornucopia of issues related to sportsmanship and character education. Many college programs put limits on their athletes’ online presence. Some high schools forbid their student-athletes to form public groups on Facebook or other web sites that use their school name or logos without coach or faculty approval. Coaches now must be knowledgeable about the potential pit falls for student social media use, even if the coach is not active in that area in their own personal life.
The emphasis for many social media education programs has been on the student-athletes themselves and how they use various platforms to communicate with the outside world. I would contend that we should be just as concerned today with how the outside world is communicating with our student-athletes. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and a myriad of other online applications make our students much more “public” than ever before. Social media has given fans access to high-profile student athletes, and too often, this access is not a positive or healthy experience for the student-athlete.
Take the recent case of Terrell Clinkscales, a junior college football player from Kansas who was fervidly attacked online when he changed his commitment from Nebraska to Kansas State. While committed to Nebraska, he received a steady flow of accolades from Husker fans all across the country. However, a couple of weeks ago, when Clinkscales, one of the nation’s top junior college defensive tackles, announced he flipped to KSU on Twitter, the insults were loud and clear from the same “fans” that had cheered him in the previous weeks. They attacked his character, his intelligence, and his work ethic. Message boards suggested he was looking for an easier school to attend academically, of course taking shots at both Clinkscales and Kansas State.
While this particular example is a junior college athlete, it is easy to see that the exact same thing could have happened with a recruit straight out of high school. Social media like Twitter and Facebook have made all high school athletes more public, more accessible, and more vulnerable to harassment that they would have been just a few years ago.
Need any proof of just how voracious the public’s appetite is to connect with high school and college athletes? Look no further than the example of Jacob Coker, who some may know as the Florida State quarterback that recently transferred to the University of Alabama. However, the Jacob Coker linked in the article here is a 16-year old from Gadsden, Alabama, who happens to share the same name with the former FSU signal caller. When the college-aged Coker announced his transfer to Alabama, fans took to the internet to find a connection, and many connected with the wrong player. In an interview with AL.com, Coker admitted that most of the tweets he received were positive, but he did get a few derogatory comments as well.
The fervor to connect with high school athletes can be manifested in many different forms, but perhaps none are as bizarre and troubling as the phenomena of high school “Cheerlebrities”, high school cheerleaders who attract hundreds of thousands of followers through Instagram. These high school student-athletes attract a cult fan club that sends them a barrage of messages each day. Many of the senders of the messages are other high school students, but some are adults with bad intentions. In a recent article for the Wire, Allie Jones writes, “While Instagram has been a great place for high-schoolers to share photos with friends (and maybe get famous in the process), it is also now a place for men to find photos of 15-year-olds wearing sports bras.” In some cases, followers have even tracked down other members of the Cheerlebrities’ families to follow. One has a boyfriend with over 50,000 Twitter followers. He recently posted a photo of a fan who dressed up like him and his Cheerlebrity girlfriend for Halloween.
While online safety and social media are not included in the playbook for most high school sports, it is now an essential topic to be covered with almost every team. Student-athletes need good “X’s and O’s” to navigate the pitfalls of the internet just as much as they need to develop better shooting form or improve their time in the 40 yard dash. On the academic side of things, most high school college counselors spend an ample amount of time informing high school seniors that their Facebook or Instagram accounts will be searched by the colleges to which they are applying. What coaches need to cover is that their accounts may be searched by a much more unreliable and unaccountable population. While some may have good intentions, many are trying to live vicariously through their experiences. Others have even worse objectives.
The bottom line? There is no doubt that social media education must be added to the ever-increasing list of responsibilities that high school coaches must put on their plate each season.
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