Ask Coach Wolff

Life used to be so much simpler with sports parenting….

But these days, in the year 2012, we have yet new challenges to encounter, most notably concerns about social media. We already know about Facebook and kids posting stupid comments and photos online that only result in trouble for them…but now as Twitter becomes more popular, athletes are even more vulnerable than ever before.

Don’t forget the cautionary case of Yuri Wright, the talented HS football prospect from Don Bosco Prep in NJ, who tweeted last year some racially and sexually suggestive nonsense. Within hours, several major football programs rescinded their offers to Wright, and the HS expelled him. You  have to wonder: a little proactive forethought would have saved this kid from a world of upheaval.

Now, more and more universities, as Doug Abrams covered on today’s show, are scanning their athletes’ twitter feeds, and have even gone so far to ban a number of words or terms from being used. The Univ of Kentucky and Louisvlle have a long, long list of banned words from twitter.

If it all sounds bizarre, well, yes, I guess it is. But then again, major universities don’t want to risk their athletic programs because one of their athletes puts out something dumb on twitter.

What’s the takeaway for sports parents?

Very simple. In much the same way that you need to educate your athlete about education, drugs, steroids, sportsmanship, and so on, you now need to add concerns about social media to the list. Unfortunately for sports parents today, the list only seems to get longer.

As I noted, sports parenting used to be a lot easier.