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Wednesday, June 2, 2010

NC State athlete poses for pics online; UNC's Williams doesn't like Tweets

I'm not sure if today's athletes are more wide open than athletes of yesterday but the Internet certainly exposes them more - so to speak.

NC State softballer Lauren Peters (pictured right) made frathousesports.com's All Hot Team and was featured in a seven-picture layout online where she shows a lot of skin. The reserve outfielder finished the season for the 28-27 Wolfpack batting only .154 but she did have 33 putouts.

Meanwhile, UNC coach Roy Williams told his players, particularly Dexter Strickland, John Henson and Larry Drew Two, to tone it down with the online Tweets. He met with the team earlier this week to give them guidelines on what not to write on Twitter. The players' Tweets certainly personalize the team but the Tweets can also be embarrassing, inappropriate and provide fodder for opponents and opponents' fans.

Apparently, the last straw for Williams came when several of the players took part in a jokefest about why the Wear twins left the Carolina program. Williams himself Tweets but very rarely. Since January, Williams has posted four Tweets totalling just more than 80 words.

After the meeting with Williams, Henson - whose dirty-dancing with bikini-wearing babes pictures made the rounds on the Internet recently - and Strickland released a Tweet which read, "Well, coached (sic) just talked to us about twitter and told us we offend some people n what not so this is a farewell to bein' myself." Then, they wrote, "Yeah these people be emailin coach n stuff smh....self expression is a birthright and something you did PRIOR to hoopin..." Sounds a little bitter and snarly, not to mention the spelling and grammar errors.

Maybe they should be schooled in how to communicate as much as what they communicate.

1 comment:

  1. I'll bet more and more colleges start having conversations with athletes about Twitter. It's amazing how much information flows out from athletes now, and most coaches yearn for control.

    All this is unfiltered and in the hands of media and fans right away. It makes for fascinating reading for fans but you can bet more of this will be monitored.

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