Stoops' staff links social media and branding in talks with players
CatsIllustrated.com recently spoke with Kentucky’s director of football recruiting, Dan Berezowitz, about how social media has changed the way the program recruits. But social media also introduces other challenges.
It’s no secret that college athletics programs have ways of teaching players how to use social media appropriately in a way that reflects positively on the university and individuals themselves. Kentucky is no different in that respect.
“It’s monitored every day and Susan (Lax) meets with these guys and talks to them and teaches them about social media,” Berezowitz told CatsIllustrated.com. “We have people talk to the guys about their brand and all that stuff because, really, high school kids, nobody really teaches them how to use social media so they just retweet song lyrics, they retweet lots of things. But as you become a college football player you’re building your brand of how a future employer will (see you).”
That goes for football players and non-football players alike, but it’s even more true for college athletes in the public spotlight.
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“I had a kid who worked for me that just graduated and took a job outside of athletics and the guy called me about a reference, a recommendation, and the first thing he told me was the thing he did was look at his social media before he hired him to see what kind of person he was, to see what he was tweeting, what he was following, what he was doing, what he was retweeting. For our guys it’s real life,” Berezowitz said. “The NFL’s gonna look at it, future employers are going to look at it, fans look at it. It’s a representation of our program and there’s things in place. Coach Stoops doesn’t just let these guys go. He talks to them about taking a deep breath and thinking before you tweet something.”
That can go for criticism from outside the program or from media, from rivalries with players at other schools, personal beefs a player might have with someone in real life, or even drama inside the locker room.
“You know, if you’re really frustrated, verbally talk about something, don’t tweet it out on Twitter. Let’s say you lose your starting spot. Now you’re second team. You don’t need to tweet that,” Berezowitz said. “You need to talk about it. So I think that’s what young kids don’t realize. They just tweet whatever and they think it’s just a public forum to just say anything.”
Kentucky's football program has been relatively drama-free when it comes to social media. When an assistant coach has left for another job or there's been a program shakeup occasionally a player has tweeted a cryptic message, but rarely has it seemed to become a significant issue.