Text is Dead; Long Live Evasion

The good news: the NCAA has approved the removal of text messaging from the recruiting process. Yes, this is how the next generation communicates, and on the surface the NCAA looks Luddite. Coaches (secretly) and athletes across America celebrate the decision. Why? Because too much of a good thing is bad, and texting was out of control.

There is a reason why recruits can only get one call a week, and only during certain times. In the past, overly aggressive coaches would call endlessly and at all times of the day and night. The idea was to show the athlete just how much they wanted him or her, and to prove their was more desire to have the athlete at the coach's school than others that didn't call as much.

Text had become the same thing, but worse. Text volume was in the 100s per day to some recruits. Many times, they were innocent "hi" and "good game", but some were deliberate attempts to circumvent the rules -- remember, one phone call a week but unlimited texts. There was nothing to say a coach couldn't text a recruit "call me" and get a second, third, fourth call per week because the coaches could accept unlimited calls.

You know something -- in most states they define that as stalking.

Have no fear, coaches who work the gray line. There's always SNW. Hey, NCAA, don't be shocked but your coaches are already on the friend lists of all the good athletes -- starting as early as the freshman year of high school. So now they can't text -- but they sure can go wall-to-wall on Facebook.

The Feds are After the SNW

OK, this won't help on the college level, but get ready for schools and libraries involving minors to start wholesale shutdown of SNW access. The Deleting Online Predators Act passed the House of Representatives by a whopping 410-15. And who wouldn't vote to get rid of predators? Of course, the devil will be in the details of enforcement. Expect over-reaction because its much easier to ban whole domains to cover one's rear against federal charges. (Take one look at HIPPA's impact on athletic training rooms and you'll see how that works).

Goodbye Text, Hello Facebook

NCAA management council voted to ban text messaging from the recruiting process. That's good if you're a recruit and a coach.

They wonder what's next, and pondered this thing called Facebook.

Oh yeah -- message for NCAA management: coaches are already there. They get on friend lists. They're going wall-to-wall on messages. On that, you're too late.

More VT notes later, but the prize winner so far to one of the networks who clued us all in on how these "social networking websites" were a key part of communication during and after the events.

Again, thanks for joining us on that one.

Long Time in Between

Hiring a coach and watching a coach be hired has keep the blog off-line the past weeks. However, let me interject a couple of points as work begins on a presentation paper on the events of the past month.

New maxim for internet strategy: When the or is worse than the truth, get the truth out in a hurry.

I say this in relation to some events in our sister department, but there was great shock at a press release detailing two positive tests with the men's basketball team regarding . OK, the initial reaction is to never, never draw attention to bad news, but in this case, the printed media reports and circulating ors and board/blog stories eluded to many more positives, positives for worse issues, academic issues, arrests and possible players on the take.

When the official word came down, the general reaction was, only two? That's not that different from other schools or the general student body. It leads to lots of posts begining, "back when I was in school . . . " that related how much worse things could be.

So, to put a halt to much worse stories and ors, get the word out when the issue isn't worse. That takes a lot more guts than it seems, and it seems like a foregone conclusion. To do this, you've got to be willing to admit there is a problem, admit that part of what was out there was true, but you also get the chance to set the record straight.

Kudos to my colleagues.

And While We're on the West Coast

How about that press guide editing at Stanford? Swim coach gets cross with star athlete. Star athlete says some things. Coach has last word by expunging the athlete from the press guide records.

Holy Cow -- Soviet Revisionist History at its finest! Comrades, the infidel is no longer with us, speak his name no more. Disappear the violator.

Unfortunately, this is no surprise to anyone who has been around the business for long. Coaches always want to tweak the truth when it comes to their historical record. Some are just more brazen than others. Just like academic politics -- you know, the stakes are so high because there is so little involved -- the less visible the sport or team the more involved the coaches become in these matters.

And the SID involved in this, talk about falling on the sword -- he thought it was OK because the coach's budget paid for the guide thus it gave him full editorial control. This is kind of like when a coach has made an "error" on their resume or press guide bio that THEY READ AND SIGNED OFF ON, and the blame falls on the PR guy.

Well, it guarantees future employment for the publicist. The fact of life is we often exist to take the hit. At the end of the day, however, the coach seems to almost always have one more zero on his paycheck compared to the foot solder that just took one for the team.

One final sad thought -- absent the San Francisco Chronicle noticing this blatant editing event, would anyone have done a darn thing about it? No.

More Stupid Athlete Facebooks

This from the Daily Trojan website at USC, some of the football players are in trouble because they made and joined up to a Facebook group entitled White Nation. It was a joke, they said. And, I don't doubt it, but in these days when you can be sent to rehab for poor choices of language, what would possess a college student to not understand the potential impact of a crude farce.

Like a Piece of You Has Died

If you are in the business, there is nothing worse than the departure of a coach that was well liked by the people they worked with. Such was the case last weekend. Investing four years in helping someone achieve, then in the space of 24 hours, gone.

Through the process, I kept counseling everyone that time would be of the essence. I had no idea. If you are involved in a breaking event with any level of media or exposure, if you think you have a day, you have hours; if you think you have hours, you really do have minutes.

More on this later in the year, perhaps at convention or in the Digest, but the timeline for the release of our coach's resignation was even fast by my standards. It stunned the participants, to the point of some negative feedback. In the end, however, the way it was handled by all parties earned us credit with both the media and our fans -- and that's the best possible result even if some of the people involved want to bark about it right now.

But, no rest for the weary -- hiring process up next.

New Perspective on the SNW Generation

For those in the business who may be tracking on this blog, I highly recommend this article in New York Magazine by Emily Nussbaum. One of the people who've given up what most of us would consider way too much information had this to say:

"You’ve got to be careful what you say—but once you say it, you’ve got to stand by it. And the only way to repair it is to continue to talk, to explain myself, to see it through. If I shut down, I’m at the mercy of what other people say. "

Nussbaum has captured the perspective of the generation that posts. It is clear. It is something we must understand. Here's the link:

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Kids%2C+the+Internet%2C+and+the+End+of+Privacy%3A+The+Greatest+Generation+Gap+Since+Rock+and+Roll+--+New+York+Magazine&expire=&urlID=21071886&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fnews%2Ffeatures%2F27341%2Findex.html%23&partnerID=73272

It's also a lead jump off the Arts and Letters Daily for today.

Someday, There Might be a Book

As a CoSIDA person, if you ever had any doubts that blogs have become a part of athletics and can drive media coverage, someday in the future when this all sorts out, I will have a story or two to tell.

For now, let me add another of my Cassandra warnings: Know your blogs. Check them often. Figure out where the trends are going.

And don't think for a single moment this is just a political/techno/entertainment world problem.

The Google-Plex Strikes

So, you've been clucking your tongue at those youngsters who don't have enough sense to cover their tracks on the internet. Posting all those inappropriate things on their SNW pages.

Until your employer decides to check out what you've been Googling.

Wha?

Consider this an adult (and student) alert -- Google's personalized search will keep track of all your past searches for you. And if you've been looking up naughty (or worse) things during company time, that may come back to haunt you as much as those beer-bong party photos by the fill-in-the-name-of-your-choice team party.

If you have a Gmail account, you may or may not have turned this function on. When you are logged into any Google account -- like the one used to make this blog, for example -- your googling can be more easily tracked. Notice, I said more easily.

If you go to the personal options of your Google account, you can turn this function off and delete any existing current search records. But any past functions will still live on in the Googleplex's stored back-ups.


Don't kid yourself -- they ARE watching.

The CIA wants you

OK -- this was a flurry of activity after weeks of idleness, but the CIA has now joined the Facebook craze. No, not in the black helicopter sense of searching for your info (come on, they'd been doing that through DARPA for years). The CIA now joins the long list of recruiters using their Facebook to attract and market.

Is is a coincidence? New head of the department of defense a well known blogger and poster himself? DoD and CIA? You be the judge.

http://arkansas.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2223915657

And, Mr. Gates, let me point out for those working on my dossier at Langley that the above was joke about the black helicopers.

Publication is out

For those interested, a paper based on the work with our student-athletes regarding their SNWs was published this month in the CoSIDA Digest. It is a limited readership, granted, but if anyone wants a copy, let me know.

Where does Buckley end?

No, not William F. Buckley, but FERPA -- commonly known as the Buckley Amendment. When do protections stop covering the communications of college students? The common answer is that student emails are a part of the educational record, although I have found some debate as to whether content may color that question. For example, a message from a teacher with grade or course information to a student, or student-to-student discussions of educational matters, are clearly part of the record. However, are student-to-student emails regarding the weather covered as "educational records". Does that extend to non-student-to-student email?

Regardless, most agree that email in the email box at the ".edu" are protected, but does that protection follow forwarded email? I am curious if anyone out there has the answer. That might have wide ranging implications for the SNW world. For example, if a .edu account is needed to acquire an account -- the old Facebook scheme -- then does that by association carry Buckley protection to the content on the Facebook page? Highly unlikely, but still begs the question.

Fed sources seem vague on this -- at least what is searchable on-line -- but I'd be interested if any of the other folks working in the SNW world have any ideas. Email me direct at my .edu -- bismith@uark.edu.

Digital Assets are Easy, World Edition

What do major American sports personalities and the late Saddam Hussein share in common? They've both been the victim of cell phone technology. Is anyone really surprised that Saddam's hanging was available on the internet within 24 hours of the event? Equally so, anyone shocked that it was a guard's cell phone used to video the event?

BTW, as of today, two were arrested and a third soon to be added for taping the event.

Required listening today on NPR

On NPR's Day to Day, Madeleine Brand has a piece on how college students don't seem to get the difference between internet privacy and general privacy. In talking to a group of Southern Cal students, they don't think -- to use their own term -- "Facebook stalking" is that big a deal unless it invades the real world. However, when asked if the government should listen to phone calls or employers should Google their digital personas, they were, well, shocked, shocked and appalled at the invasion of their privacy. Brand has dug up a Harvard Law Review article by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandies that I will not do my own googling for a copy. It is scary on the mark to today, another example of what's old becomes new again. Writing in 1890:

"Instantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life, and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the housetops." -- transcribing the NPR story, quoting Warren and Brandies.

At the end of the story, there is a brief primer on privacy law cases, and posing the question of liability if one violates the privacy of another with your SNW.

Listen to the story at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6710445

Slowly back on line

Nothing, nothing like a close family death on Christmas day.

Anyway, back to the grind. Let me take a moment to point out a couple of retrospective items. The last two We're History segments are available now on the KUAF podcasting site (www.kuaf.org). Both will have extended play extras -- only the farewell to Pluto is posted as of today.

But, with bowl season well underway, enjoy the December edition as we take the We're History concept -- that the modern media has a very limited knowledge of history and lets that cloud its editorial work -- to the sports page.

Brut, Meinke, Champs bowls as shameless commercialism? Well, let us introduce you to the Refrigerator Bowl.

Really, I Have a Written Excuse

The pace of post slows during this hard stretch. While there are lots of things happening, I've not had a lot of time to put those items here on the blog.

Just to keep you up, it appears our family will be headed toward a fifth parent/grandparent funeral here at Christmas in six years. And the sixth year involved moving one parent into extended care after a major accident.

So, not to play for sympathy but if there isn't a lot of activity here in the next week understand it's because we're busy with hospice.

If it's good enough for the Secretary of Defense

Further confirmation of the apocalypse -- at least as the traditionalists are concerned. Deadspin.com is featuring a link from TexAgs.com that that particular board had a very special poster.

Ranger65 changed jobs, and upon heading to his new, higher security gig, he revealed his gig'um identity: none other than the president of Texas A&M, Robert Gates. Jump over the deadspin for details, but consider the implications of that.

The college president is weighing in and reading the message boards.

Obviously, his new job won't allow him to continue giving his opinion.

One of the days Facebook is a good thing

If you are a cross country runner in the northeast, you already know about the Facebook group entitled, “Victims of the NESCAC Rash." If you aren't, you probably needed today's newsfeed from the Chronicle of Higher Ed to call your attention to this event. Apparently a large percentage -- about 75% -- of the runners at this particular meet hosted by Connecticut College have a mystery skin rash. The group has photos and details.
So what's the big deal -- without a Facebook page that reached thousands of college students, would they have been able to come together and realize their common problem. This is one of the times the speed, immediacy and intimacy of the SNW world does good. Kudos on this one.

Digital Assets are Extremely Portable

This is a mantra that I continue to chant to our students (please note, that's not student-athletes -- I tell my 16-year old, our student workers, the Lady'Backs). I have been visited with a particularly nasty incarnation of why this is important.

As I have in the past, the origins of the school, the sport and the athlete are anonymous, but one must be very careful of who one parties with and who one allows to take your picture.

No less dramatic than Brittany and Paris' wonderful commando adventures, this athlete allowed herself to be photographed in a less than discrete lack of clothing. It obviously was made with a camera phone, and photoshopped to add a particularly nasty tagline. It is now being shared with other coaches around the U.S.

The photo was located on a U.S.-based photo server, and that has allowed for some access to have it removed by the offended party. However, if it was off-shore, whoever put up the image may have ultimate control.

It is a reminder of how the Northwestern soccer case broke. The photos were on a server that allowed for outsiders to browse, and that's how the privacy was breached.

I'm sure at the time the photo was taken, it seemed a little racy, some harmless soft porn fun. Harmless until it becomes part of your dossier.