the tindog coffeehouse

After two Texas Tech football players recently posted negative comments on Twitter, coach and head pirate Mike Leach banned his team from tweeting altogether and also suspended offensive lineman Brandon Carter indefinitely.

Naturally, the story generated a lot of interest in the media and around the Internet at a time when the Red Raiders are still dealing with the aftermath of losing their second game of the season. But was it the right move?

James Hodgins, social media director for the Price Group advertising agency in Lubbock, Texas, says no:

What right does Leach have to ban his players from Twitter just because they posted negative views? Can a company ban its employees from social media if they post negative comments? Or staying at the university, can a professor ban her students for the same thing?

Of course, for the team and a business, there needs to be a policy in place that outlines what can and cannot be said. But how can you claim transparency (the whole point of social media) if you ban all negative points?

In my view, Leach should have suspended players temporarily from Twitter until the time the athletic department could create a solid set of standards. This, people would have understood, and there would have been less controversy surrounding the program.

As it stands now, Leach either has to stand by his guns and be the bad guy, or backtrack and admit he overreacted. Neither are good options.

Of course the athletic department should’ve had a policy in place before this happened, but obviously it didn’t. As a result, Leach had no choice but to implement a ban, at least until some kind of guidelines can be put into place. Yes, that makes him the bad guy. But sometimes that goes with the job.

That said, I disagree with Mr. Hodgins’ claim that the whole point of social media is transparency. Transparency implies that everything about an organization is out in the open, available to be posted freely on the Internet without reservation, and quite frankly, that’s pretty irresponsible. Some kind of reasonable limits need to be in place.

Does that mean that players aren’t free to express their frustrations online? Yes and no. The distinction is this: When you identify yourself as part of a particular organization, be it a football team or a company, you represent that organization, whether you’re on the clock or not. And that means that any public behavior is a direct reflection on that organization. As such, organizations have a responsibility to place restrictions on what their members say and do publicly in order to protect their image. And that is in no way infringing on our rights to free speech.

Further, even though they didn’t violate any written rules since none existed, by venting their frustrations with the team publicly on Twitter, the Tech players displayed questionable judgment and a lack of maturity. If they had a problem with Leach, they should’ve taken it up with him in private, not simply posted their opinions online. And if players can’t be trusted to use proper discretion, then an outright ban is the only option.

Previously:
Sorry, Leach is not ‘the best college football coach in the country’