OSU facing one opponent (Twitter) before Savannah State
Published: 8/10/2012 11:16 AM
Last Modified: 8/10/2012 12:43 PM
Did you think Oklahoma State’s first opponent was Savannah State? Officially, that’s true. Unofficially, OSU’s first “opponent” turned out to be Twitter.
OSU sideline reporter Robert Allen reported on Go.Pokes com (and is saying on his Stillwater-based talk radio show today) that coach Mike Gundy essentially told his team how the cow eats cabbage in regard to Twitter usage.
Translated, Gundy reportedly isn’t banning his players from tweeting, which is smart because you don't want to get into freedom of speech issues and you don't want other schools telling recruits "hey, you don't want to go there because they won't let their kids use Facebook and Twitter."
But Gundy supposedly told players (and support personnel) in no uncertain terms that he doesn’t want them using social media to tweet company business. The GoPokes.com report, citing a witness to the Gundy’s post-practice speech, indicated Gundy was “emphatic” and “very stern.”
Twitter content became an issue because OSU, like many college football programs, treats injuries like national security is at stake. Teammates (or players themselves) tweeted this week about pending surgeries for receiver Torrance Carr and defensive end Jimmy Bean. Their intent wasn’t to divulge confidential info to sleeper cells on Twitter. They were just asking for prayers and that sort of thing.
The fact that their surgeries leaked out will not sabotage OSU’s season. Bean entered preseason camp listed third on the depth chart. Carr is vying for time at an inside receiver position.
Gundy usually won’t get specific about aches and pains unless someone has sustained a season-ending injury, but, cat out of the bag, a source close to the football program confirmed Friday that Bean will be out two to three weeks with a knee injury, Carr will be out two to three weeks with a foot injury and first-year freshman linebacker Jeremiah Tshimanga will be out indefinitely with a right knee injury.
Meanwhile, Gundy has not publicly elaborated on his Twitter stance because his chat with the team occurred between scheduled media availability sessions. His next scheduled availability session is Saturday night, after a closed scrimmage. By then, I hope to have something more important to ask him about than hashtags.
Sure, a little injury info crept out of OSU’s camp. No harm, no foul. It’s not the tweeters’ fault (or the fault of media members who picked up on the tweets) that coaches don’t trust each other. Would a coach really be cutthroat enough to tell one of their players to hit an opponent on a knee that was known to have been surgically repaired? If so, those guys aren’t saints, although they could be Saints.
My thoughts on Twitter? If I was a head coach nowadays, I wouldn’t want to deal with the potential headaches that could crop up because of social media.
If you were Barry Switzer a few decades ago, all you had to worry about was the press conference potential for Brian Bosworth to say something about burnt orange (Texas’ colors) reminding him of puke or perhaps saying UCLA wears sissy pastel uniforms. Can you imagine Boz (who was great at self-promotion) with Twitter at his fingertips? He would have had a million followers and Switzer would have needed a million aspirins.
But I also realize it’s not just the Internet age. It’s a no-secrets age.
If a significant college football player (let’s say the Honey Badger, for speculation purposes) walks into a classroom on crutches, somebody in that class won’t be able to resist posting it on Twitter. Andy Warhol was wrong when he said that, in the future, everyone will have 15 minutes of fame. In this future, everybody became media. Everybody is contributing to a news feed. And everybody with a smart phone has the potential to be paparazzi.
Colleges can attempt to place safeguard-type restrictions on professional media, but there are no such restrictions for amateur media. How can you yank the credentials of someone who never had one?
The toothpaste isn’t going back into the tube. So what do football coaches do about social media?
Coaches will learn to choose their battles wisely. Pick only the ones worth fighting and have the wisdom to know that you can sometimes win by losing. My opinion is Gundy has gotten better at this during his evolution as a head coach.
And -- this is big -- coaches should worry only about things they can control. Twitter is an uncontrollable beast and you can’t suspend it or make it run bleachers or ban it from practice. So you tell your players to tweet responsibly and cross your fingers that boys will act like men and men won’t act like fools.
Written by
Jimmie Tramel
Sports Writer
