Courtesy of Dawgfather91.

http://www.subwaydomer.com/2012-articles/january/hey-college-football-fans-leave-recruits-alone.html

This sort of stuff cannot happen! Good reading, makes you realize how much our opinion as fans matter. If you wouldn’t say it to your mother, or to the face of the person you are speaking of, don’t post it!

I have a couple thoughts on this topic:

1. Posters should not call people names.
2. Recruits should understand that there is no way to tell who or what age or intelligence level these posters are
3. I follow some recruits on twitter and notice that some interact with fans. They need to be accountable for this also. They are so concerned about getting as many followers as possible that they solicit fans to follow them. And ask other recruits to help them get more followers. I understand this is not the case with all athletes but for many it is. This is why #2 is probably the most important aspect.
4. I agree with the second article that says fans should not try to interact with these recruits.

Interesting times we live in

I think unfortunately that this sort of thing is to be expected with the rise of social media. As with everything these days, technology moves far faster than societal norms of how to utilize that technology and form rules of behavior around them.

“Friending” recruits on Facebook is silly (and often counterproductive) behavior by adults, as is interaction with them on Twitter. Comments on message boards are to be expected, but rudeness and outright nastiness is not.

That said, we all have to understand the nature of “fans” – the word is short for “fanatics”, so we’re not always dealing with rational people. Recruits need to understand the nature of message boards and sports fans and know that A) message boards are (mostly) anonymous, which both encourages brazen behavior as well as masks true intentions, i.e. fans of rival programs posting as fans of your team with the purpose of making your fan base look bad, and B) fans generally take things too seriously regarding their favorite team, and some venting is to be expected when things don’t go their way.

I would hope that recruits are savvy enough to know that there’s no major differences between fanbases in that respect; if Walker Williams were from Wisconsin and chosen to commit to Washington, reactions from the Wisconsin fans would have been similar in feeling scorned.

I also have my doubts that message board chatter really has that much impact on a recruit’s decision – it certainly shouldn’t. It should be extremely low on any list of pros and cons for a particular school on their list.

That said, we as Husky fans should be aware that recruits do read what is said about them, and that right or wrong, there may be some bad vibes going around recruits from what’s been said about some of them. We should strive to be better than other fanbases and do what we can to not make Sark’s job of recruiting any harder than it has to be.

Just today I noticed on twitter that Arik Armstead was making comments about people being rude to him. Its crazy that people are doing this. But then a little bit later an Oregon fan mentioned him in a tweet supporting Arik. Telling all these “grown men” to grow up. Well isnt this Oregon fan such a great guy. Come on he wants Arik to think Oregon fans are great and would never do something like this. This is basically recruiting.

We arent getting away from this.

The pampered, selfish, and wildly immature teenage athlete, has been bred to know nothing of criticism, let alone, how to handle it Everyone tells them how good they are from the very second they step on the field, hearing hosannas is the norm. They have whittled away their ability to absorb criticism with the opiate of constant adulation’s. They are nothing more than emotional addicts.

I find it amusing how much I want these 5 star guys on my team, while at the same time knowing how much I would viscerally hate them in person.

But, at the end of the day, I would root for a 5 star PSA from the National Socialist Prep school if he was good enough…

JUST. WIN. BABY.