Many coaches view Twitter as nothing more than a distraction, and Mike Leach has apparently joined that group. Effective earlier this week, Leach has banned his Washington State players from using Twitter in any capacity or tweeting anything — regardless of the message.
According to The Spokesman-Review, Washington State athletic director Bill Moos said some of the WSU players have been “vulgar” with their tweets and writing things that he wouldn’t want kids to read. Leach didn’t offer much of an explanation, but he made it clear that the ban is very serious.
“Twitter’s now banned around here, so don’t expect anything on Twitter,” Leach said. “Twitter’s banned and quite frankly, if after today you see anything on Twitter from our team — and I don’t care if it says, ‘I love life’ — I would like to see it, because I will suspend them.”
When asked what promoted the ban, Leach didn’t feel as though he owed anyone a detailed explanation.
“Because I decided to,” he said. “That’s what prompted that.”
Clearly, something one or more of his players said ticked him off. Leach is not the first coach to ban his players from using twitter (this college basketball coach did it) and he won’t be the last. For all the entertaining things we see on Twitter, we have seen enough ridiculous tweets to understand why a coach would want to keep his players away from it. However, not all coaches are worried about their players tweeting.
If you can’t trust your players on Twitter, you probably can’t trust them on third down,” Oregon head coach Chip Kelly said when informed of Leach’s decision, according to Adam Jude of The Oregonian.
I guess that’s one way of looking at it.
H/T Dr. Saturday, SbB Live
