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Good luck to NCAA monitoring Facebook, Twitter recruiting

As NCAA officials and university presidents meet to discuss pay for play, scholarship rules and other items, here’s one they shouldn’t overlook: Facebook and Twitter use.

A N.Y. Times story details how social media has become the crucial area in college recruiting (duh), boosted in part by a text-message ban in 2007 and umpteen rules involving phone calls. That means most coaches don’t mess around when it comes to Facebook and Twitter.

If they’re not on it and friends with certain recruits, they are now. From the story:

Mike Martin, an assistant basketball coach at Penn, said he used Facebook for about 75 percent of his communication with recruits.

“You become friends with a kid on Facebook, and you can tell quickly who is recruiting him by what other coaches he’s friends with,” Martin said.

Likewise, Roberts said with a laugh, when he receives friend requests from other coaches, he is unsure whether they just want to see who he is recruiting.


The funny part? Coaches can reach those recruits by e-mailing athletes’ on Facebook and direct messaging them on Twitter. If that sounds like text messaging without the phone charges, that’s because it is.

But unless the NCAA wants to ban athletes from using Facebook and Twitter (or coaches), there’s no way to monitor that. So good luck discussing that everyone!

You also can follow me on Twitter @MikeMillerNBC.