If inquiring minds wanted to know what Syracuse women’s basketball coach Quentin Hillsman thought of the annual Midnight Madness event, they need look no further than his Twitter page.

‘midnight madness was off the chain!!! we had a great time!! Practice today was awesome!!!’

Hillsman – with the Twitter ID CoachQatSU – posted that quote on Twitter the day after the Friday night event at the Carrier Dome. Hillsman is just one of several coaches at SU who have begun using social media to communicate with the fan base.

The SU athletic department noticed the recent explosion of Twitter and other social media, and has aimed to take advantage of the growing trend.

‘People’s lives have become very electronic, so to speak,’ said Scott Sidwell, SU executive senior associate athletic director. ‘These are all things that, as people continue to evolve in means of communication; they are efficient and consistent with the communication world. We want to be proactive.’

To that end, the athletic department has undertaken a campaign this year to incorporate social media into everyday operations. As a result, anyone with access to the Internet can read the official Syracuse University football blog, follow Hillsman on Twitter or, when it is operational, visit www.mikehopkins.com to learn more about men’s basketball assistant coach Mike Hopkins

But the social media storm does not stop with administrators and coaches. Athletes in various sports at Syracuse are using social media to reach the student body, and the surrounding community, through Facebook pages, individual Twitter feeds and personal blogs.

Pete Hill, the captain of the men’s soccer team, writes a weekly blog called ‘Corner Kicks,’ in which he talks about the team from a player’s point of view. The Syracuse field hockey team has its own Facebook page, which it updates regularly with photos and stories about the team.

Syracuse has taken a hands-on approach in dealing with the emergence of social media in the last few years. While some universities have chosen to ban athletes’ use of social media, SU chose to educate its athletes.

In April 2006, Kent State discussed the possibility of banning its athletes from having Facebook pages. Three months later, the policy was reconsidered, allowing athletes to use the social networking site as long as they conformed to the athletic department’s code of behavior.

Syracuse, on the other hand, took a more inclusive approach. The university required athletes to take a course during the summer in which they learned how to avoid the problems inherent to using social media.

‘It’s a bit ridiculous trying to control not just information that (SU Athletics) might want to control, but the normal discourse that students have with friends and family,’ said Vin Crosbie, senior consultant on executive education for new media at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. ‘It’s like telling them not to use the telephone.’

Crosbie cited a recent study in which 46 percent of adults said they regularly use social media and 27 percent of adults said they used some form of social media yesterday. He added that social media has become a normal part of people’s lives.

‘The athletes are adults and should be educated as any adult would,’ Crosbie said. ‘Obviously you wouldn’t want the students disclosing the playbook or anything that would violate NCAA restrictions, but putting a ban on it is ridiculous.’

Aside from allowing athletes to stay in touch with their friends and family, the athletic department’s use of social media has several other applications. One of the more promising areas is recruiting.

If the university is careful enough to avoid violating NCAA recruiting violations, social media can be an efficient and rapid way for Syracuse to keep open the lines of communication with potential recruits.

‘It’s certainly a movement in that area that’s been happening over time,’ Sidwell said. ‘The NCAA has looked at all of the ways they will regulate social media. It’s another tool for communication. That’s how we look at it.’

But even though Syracuse has adopted such a progressive attitude toward Facebook, Twitter and similar sites, the inherent dangers cannot be avoided. Crosbie described the content that athletes post on these sites as a conversation with a friend that anybody can listen to if they so choose.

Crosbie added that, at the same time, social media are conversational by nature, and that some of the information disclosed by athletes on social media sites is not disclosed intentionally.

So how would he educate athletes on this issue?

‘Remember that when you’re saying something, you’re not just saying it for the people who you think are tuning in,’ Crosbie said. ‘Use common sense that any adult would.’

Alumni have also been joining the social media frenzy at Syracuse. Sidwell said the feedback from graduates on the SU athletics social media program has been tremendous because it allows members of the Syracuse community to communicate with each other, even if they are on opposite sides of the world.

Sidwell said the athletic department continues to talk to professionals and Newhouse graduates who are on the cutting edge of social media trends in order to keep Syracuse at the forefront of communication. He added that taking advantage of resources available on SU’s campus is an important component of making the university a trendsetter.

In keeping with Syracuse’s recent initiatives, Sidwell himself created a Facebook page. He added that the use of social media needs to be kept in perspective.

‘I think it’s fantastic if you use it for the right reasons,’ Sidwell said. ‘Our lives are so busy, to me this is another avenue to help stay in touch with people. But it certainly doesn’t ever replace the face-to-face interaction in our world.’

azmeola@syr.edu

Published on October 19, 2009 at 12:00 pm