School
has started at Wichita State and we have been busy getting everyone through the
initial meetings and paperwork that happens every year. It’s all pretty boring stuff so I’m gonna
skip the weekly update and talk about …..
Coaching in the age
of social media
If
you’re at least 30 years old and have been in charge of young people for most
of your professional life, this entry should probably hit home.
I’m
40 years old and have been on the positive side of technology most of my
life. My family had Texas Instruments
and Commodore 64 computers when I was a kid and I was an Information Systems
major in college. Even though I was an
IS major the first time I ever heard about email was my freshman year at Kent
State. I was actually writing
handwritten letters to friends before we figured out this whole Internet and email
thing. I started the website KentTrack.com
sometime around 1995 and it was one of the first of its kind. I helped design the original website for Kent
State Athletics shortly thereafter. Long
story short – I’m a guy who has always been into computers and technology.
It’s
something we talk about in our office on an almost daily basis. It’s something we talk with our team about on
a regular basis.
There
is good and bad about what technology has done to young people.
The good …
A
lot of the older generation looks unfavorably at what cell phones and social
media has done to young people but there are plenty of good things that have
come from it.
Kids
are generally more informed nowadays because they are constantly reading things
online. They’re more worldly and aware
of social and cultural nuances. When I
was growing up I had to wait for the newspaper the next day to get new
information. Now newspapers are heading
towards extinction and being replaced by 140 character updates on Twitter and
things like blogs (haha).
You
can get information out to the public about your organization or team much
easier now. Being a track coach, it had
always been frustrating to hope that the newspaper or television might put a
snippet about you in their reports but now we’ve virtually created our own
media markets where we can promote ourselves as much as we want.
Going
online has helped the sport of track and field.
Even though this week’s World Championships of Track and Field is only broadcast
sporadically on television, I’m able to watch the entire meet on my computer. We don’t have the following of the general
public like football, basketball or baseball but we have a large online
community that continues to grow through the years.
I
also think young people are able to multi task better than the older
generation. They might not always use
their multi-tasking skills for productive things but they probably have more
skill because they are constantly doing multiple things at once.
It’s
been great for me to keep up to date with friends from all over the world as
well. Thanks to Facebook and Twitter I still
keep in touch with people I never would’ve been able to without it.
The bad …
I
feel fortunate to have been born when I was.
I saw everything evolve growing up but it didn’t consume us as
kids. We still went outside to play every
day. If we had a bad day and had to deal
with our problems, we talked it out with our parents or other family and close
friends. There was no outlet to complain
or seek sympathy from anyone else.
Nowadays,
the smallest frustration or problem for a young person goes out on one of the
many social media platforms and when adults see this we generally roll our eyes
and wonder why they need to vent in a fashion that makes them look more
immature than they are.
When
you put a negative post on social media one of two things generally happen. The first thing is you get a bunch of people
coming to your defense saying that everything will be ok. The other thing that can happen is no one
responds or comments on the post.
Both
of these actions end up bad for the kids who posts the negative or whiny message. The people who are responding in a supportive
way by saying “its ok it’s not your fault” is not really helping the person
deal with the frustration they have.
They are merely just piling on and enabling that person to feel better
without dealing with the situation. As
adults we (usually) understand how important it is to deal with problems head
on so they don’t come back again.
Not
saying anything in response to the message can make the original poster feel
like no one cares about them. This isn’t
the case but when kids (or sometimes idiot adults) are so wrapped up in their
online personality it can feel like they are now isolated, which obviously isn’t
good.
Needless
to say cell phones have made young people more easily distracted. They can’t sit and listen to coaches talk for
more than a few minutes without losing attention. It’s not totally their fault, society has
allowed this to happen. Sometimes I feel
bad for them and am thankful I’m not that way.
Social
media has become a place to promote yourself which makes the user more and more
narcissistic every day. Taking selfies
and talking about things in your life that pertain to no one but yourself makes
you more selfish. It’s not a coincidence
the words selfie and selfish are almost the same.
How does this affect
an athlete?
What
we have found is that many, many more athletes now have a false sense of
reality as they enter college. They have
received more attention growing up and put more focus on themselves instead of
what it means to be a valuable member of a team.
At
the Division I level it can be a very humbling experience. Almost all of these athletes were among the
best on their team and state and when they start competing against some of the
best collegiate athletes, and get whooped on a consistent basis, many of them
aren’t prepared emotionally to handle it.
Instead of looking at the big picture and how to grind their way
step-by-step up the ladder they often look for support through social media and
a quick fix.
How
often to you see a young athlete say “Worst day ever” or some other negative
phrase along with a bunch of sad face emoji’s?
This is not the foundation of a tough minded athlete.
What do we do about
it?
Not
every young person handles social media and technology incorrectly but as
educators or mentors we have to continue to help them understand why it’s important
to handle it correctly. As I have talked
about previously it’s not all bad and for us to totally trash their use of
technology will only hurt our efforts in getting through.
As
with most things in life, moderate usage is ok.
Is it bad to have an adult beverage from time to time? No. It
is bad to become an alcoholic? Yes. Kids get “drunk” on social media and before
too long they are controlled by it.
Parents
need to be aware of what their kids post on social media and deal with it
before it gets out of control. That
means you need to try and understand it so you can effectively monitor what
your kids are doing. It’s not going away
anytime soon. Often kids arrive to
college and we have to really reign them in before they start representing
themselves, their school and their team in negative light. It’s a life lesson they need to
understand. Employers (and college
recruiters) look at the online lives of young people all the time and it can
make the difference in the having the chance of a lifetime or not.
Last
week we had a meeting with our newcomers and I challenged them to not tweet or
post about themselves for a week. Post a
message about a friend or something that is informative. I’ve already seen many of them not be able to
follow through on the challenge. It’s ok
for now because I hope the point begins to sink in and over time I hope they
understand that technology isn’t always the answer.
Hey
old people! Continue fighting the good
fight to help our young people understand why it’s important to have moderation
with technology but we have to continue to understand things from their
perspectives too. If we don’t we’ll just
sound like a bunch of old fogey’s.
Next blog
You’ll
definitely want to come back next week as I will piggyback on this blog with a
big announcement!
Until
then thanks for reading -- Go Shocks!!!
