College Athletics Makes You Sign Away Your Life

So you want to be a college athlete? I’m sure that at this point, you’ve heard that signing your NCAA letter of intent is similar to “signing your life away.” What does that mean exactly? Surely you are aware that it means designating over 30 hours a week towards your program (traveling, lifting, practices, community service, etc.). But did you realize that it meant signing your social life away too?

Day one of our preseason, my coach walks into our team meeting and says “Nikki, how was zip lining in Jamaica… looked like fun!” This statement might not seem like a lot to you, but it really made me cringe.

1. How did my coach know Nikki was in Jamaica? (We are NOT that close with her)

2. How did she get access to this information?

3. How much information can she gain access to?

To clarify, our coach requires us to “friend” her on all of our social media accounts (including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) so she can monitor our posts. Sounds a bit invasive, right? Not only does our coach spend multiple hours a day with us, but she’s now able to watch over our accounts and keep tabs on what we do in our free time. In other words, it means that our Division 1 soccer coach not only controls our soccer lives, but our social lives as well.

I would like to mention that our team is never allowed to use profanity, listen to music with vulgar lyrics, or really say anything that wouldn’t be allowed on the Disney Channel. This rule is unique but not exclusive to my team. As a 21 year old, I should be able to talk about drinks without having to refer to them as “adult beverages”, but our coach does not tolerate this.

Censoring our social lives is a form of control that should not be allowed within the NCAA, and typically it is not. However, since sports are a serious form of revenue for universities, administrators tend to comply with the rules that coaches set for their teams. When we approached our athletic administrator about this invasion of privacy, she simply shrugged and said that it was up to our coach.

Embarking upon my career in college athletics, I believed that I would be able to balance two aspects of my life: my athletic obligation, and my social life. As a student first and an athlete second, the balance should be shifted toward our obligations off the field. After all, I did come to college for an education. However, there came to be too many gross imbalances of the athletic obligations and their weight taking a toll on my social life. Suddenly, I was hit with a set of rules that went beyond my contractual commitment and began to encroach on the personal aspects of my student life. Normal students are allowed to post whatever they want and (usually) not face consequences. Giving my coach access to my social media accounts allows for her to have way too much information and governance of my personal life. As a result, I stopped tweeting, posted a lot less Instagrams, and turned my Facebook to “private.”

Turning the Tables

Now, I also understand the opposing side: maybe my coach wants to be proactive and prevent a controversial tweet from happening. Let’s take Stephanie McCaffrey of the Boston College women’s soccer team, for example. In 2012, McCaffrey posted inappropriate tweets in attempts to trash talk their upcoming opponent, Penn State Women’s Soccer team. On November 15, she tweeted:

· “I wonder if well get into the visitors locker room at Penn state…I hear the showers are weiners only, 10 and under”

· “Raping at penn state to getting raped in state penn… #beatPennState #santouchsky #legggooeags”

Both of these posts are wildly insensitive and definitely justify her game suspension. From now on, Stephanie will be known as the girl who used poor judgment in her tweeting and may have difficulty in finding a job later on.

Certainly this type of behavior is not tolerable and it is natural for a coach to be sensitive to their player’s social media accounts. However, I feel as though it is up to the player (and the player’s upbringing) to decide how to filter their posts. According to a study in the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law, such “NCAA regulations are infringing on the First Amendment rights of those choosing to use social media for speech relating to athletics.” The surge in social media use has created unprecedented situations that pose challenges for the NCAA. The result is confusion amongst institutions on what is expected of them and how they should go about penalizing perpetrators of social media. Moral of the story, since there aren’t any legitimate rules set in place for institutions, it is basically a free-for-all for deciding punishments.

I certainly have made my fair share of mistakes of posting a questionable Instagram or picture, but that, ultimately is my choice. Student-athletes should be able to separate their sports commitment from their social life. College is like a petri dish of self-expression, and it is our prerogative to live it in the most colorful way possible. However, as a student-athlete, our rights to this lifestyle are continually diminishing. In addition to my experiences, the men’s basketball teams at Minnesota, Purdue, Iowa and Louisville are all barred from tweeting during season. Clemson and Florida State football coaches also prohibit players from using Twitter.

It becomes a bit hypocritical when schools ban their players use of social media, yet use those same platforms to promote their sports teams.

The issue that arises is that regular students don’t have the power to dent their school’s reputation like college athletes do — especially at big sports schools. Student athletes are often referred to as ambassadors of their school. Do Steph Curry, Manti Te’o and Johnny Manziel ring a bell? Immediately Davidson, Notre Dame and Texas A&M must have flashed across your mind. This type of association is what universities prosper from. Not only do these star athletes bring massive amounts of attention towards the university, but the financial inflow that they bring are second to none. Below is a list of the revenue generated from the 2015 Final Four schools:

Clearly, the universities thrive off of their sports teams — it is a huge part of their identity. Without student-athletes, universities would have less of a competitive edge in enticing students to apply to their school. Yet us, student athletes, are not treated this way.

Coaches justify stripping our accounts by saying it is in hopes of preventing egregious social media events from happening.

The expectation: student-athletes should act like professionals. In our world, this means we are stripped of any mistake-making opportunity. Again, not horrible when you read it aloud, but we are in college and deserve to roam free with our thoughts and posts. In-season routines are monotonous and sometimes stressful. Turning to social media to vent or receive sympathy is a common practice that peers have the luxury of using. As a student-athlete, we are further alienated by being restricted from expressing ourselves and connecting with our campus. Bottom line, we are half students and half athletes. We should be able to filter our own thoughts and broadcast personal information at our own will.

Is this even allowed?

This is actually unconstitutional and could be brought to court — especially with public school athletes. The Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law stresses that the NCAA does not do an adequate job of defining principles encompassing social media. In creating these rules, the NCAA should “tread carefully” because rules prohibiting the use of social media contravene with the freedom of expression under the First Amendment. However, there has yet to be a court case because of the sensitivity of this subject.

Why don’t we do something about this?

By now you’ve probably grasped my anger towards this issue and are wondering why there hasn’t been an official uproar. For one, it takes a lot of legal fees to orchestrate this type of revolution; you ultimately would be going up against the NCAA. In addition, you don’t want to be “that player” who distracts the team from achieving a successful season due to a social media rebellion. In the end you weigh your options using a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” mentality. Unfortunately, the “damned if you do (bring them to court)” receives more weight and you go for four years complying with unconstitutional terms.