Myspace and the changing face of coaching

Boys will be boys.

But seriously, thats incredibly dumb of those kids to post pics of themselves in compromising situations like that. Its almost more convienient to catch them when they post pictures of themselves getting wasted and smoking weed on the internet than it would be to actually get drunk or high in a school administrator's living room.

Not smart.

I just go the head job a couple months ago and went through and did the myspace search of kids at the school. I saw some of the guys and was rather disappointed by what was on their sites. When I went up to meet the players before spring break I mentioned to a couple of the more disturbing myspace owners that I was disappointed with what I saw and hoped that they would do a better job of representing themselves, their family, and team than what they had on the sites. I have since gone back to the sites and found 3 of the 5 that I talked to had taken the really bad stuff off and the other two had done nothing. It was nice to see that some of them are listening to some suggestions.

Happenend to us two years ago. Had 2 starters blowing smoke into their picture they had posted and had referrences to getting blazed. Needless to say, they shaped up and didn't cause any more problems, one actually played very well. After that, all of our kids sites mysteriously disappeared until the end of the season....

along with myspace, we've had to "confront" / address our kids on message board posting at regional rival.com sites.

We were finding that these guys were 'leaking' sensitive/personal information about the team (sending bad perceptions to the public).

this was ACTUAL footage of me at my last coaching interview.....



with all that traffic, you can choose to be part of the mix or get 'left behind'. You can choose to be an influencer of an audience or let someone else have the forum.....point is....RECRUITING.

Just putting your name out there (school, coach, etc) is just like fishing. You may not get everyone, but you will get a share of 'advertising time' with potential suitors.

Face it...if your team had a myspace page, a kid sees it, how much more inclined would he be to want to be part of a badace social network (what football was BEFORE title IX and the Internet)? Especially if you are posting videos of your highlight reels or rosters.

You could have a proprietary team website....but HOW are people going to find it? If you are on myspace (most kids are) one friend leads to another friend leads to anyone connected to your team....GOT 'EM!

www.myspace.com/brophyfootball

One of our former players set this up.

www.myspace.com/easternvikingsfootball

As the Dean of Students at our school, I've become all to familiar with MySpace sites. In the past month alone we have had to discipline students who were found to have -

egged our rival school
vandalized our own school
made bogus food orders over the phone
sent an "escort" to the home of one of our teachers

We found out who the kid(s) for all of these pranks/crimes were because of comments made on or by friend connections on myspace. Some were brought directly to us by concerned students and some were found by our weekly trolling via different kids whose sites we have access to.

We actually had 2 senior football players who had posted video on their sites of them driving to and from a vandalism event, bragging about their club "ATL" which stood for Above The Law. It's been about 3 weeks since they both went down - The police visited their house with a waiver saying the school would not prosecute if they admitted their involvement and paid full restitution. They also did not get to go to prom, go on the senior trip (NY), and they didn't get to walk during commencement.

We try to get them to do the right thing but some kids just have to learn the hard way.

My old school.. The center had a friend over at his house.. while using his computer they made a fake myspace of the school's female principal. He photoshoped her face on a nude pic and did some other stuff. Well, her hubby is a detective on the city police department.. so they got caught sure enough.

They were arrested, and their pics were posted in the news paper with 6 or so child molesters who were caught soliciting sex on the internet. Their crime was internet stalking.. but they mixed them right in there with the others..

They were both expelled for the remainder of the year. I know the Center gets to come back next year, but not sure about the other kid.

The sad part.. the center is a GREAT kid.. never been in a bit of trouble ever.. Im talking about not even a tardy.. but his jokester friend got them both in a world of trouble.

I would disagree tvt - these two seniors were seen as team leaders and more than one returning player knew they were doing some things but just couldn't bring themselves to come forward (although one obviously did eventually). This type of behavior is what can rip a team apart. Suppose two of your players had vandalized your school, or maybe they sent a hooker to your home where your wife and kid were watching TV when the "escort" knocked on the door (that's exactly what happened to our teacher!) and you answered it? Would you still feel the same way, or would you want to find out who was responsible for it...?

We hope our players are good people at heart and we hope they do the right thing. Sometimes they make poor decisions. If it's a really poor decision, then they are going to suffer some consequences, like my two players.

I address the fact that if you got something on myspace that shouldnt be take it off, but I dont have time to be checking everybody's myspace page reading crap and looking at pics. You might be shocked at what you find, I know I wasnt a saint at their age, either.