Social Media and WBB

LA Women's Hoops found Twitter about a year ago, and since then, I've hooked. I'm on Twitter a lot; I tweet alot, I check for new tweets, I'll watch a game and tweet. If I had a smartphone, I would be on Twitter all the time. Good thing I don't have a smartphone!!

I follow a ton of coaches, almost all from mid major programs. The only schools from BCS conferences I follow are: Northwestern-big fan of
Head Coach Joe McKeown, UCLA-big fan of Nikki Caldwell, and Maryland-where I grew up.

I think Twitter can provide great insight to the day to day life of a coach. But I think tweets should be real; not putting on a "good face" to impress recruits. Tell it like it is. If the team had a bad practice, tell us. Don't hide and not post anything for a few days, until another "great" day comes along.

While I do enjoy following all coaches, but there are somethings that I don't like about Twitter. Some coaches need to take off the rose colored glasses and stop being a cheerleader. They always post "Great practice" or "Great workout" and that is such BS. I mean, these are 17-22 year old kids, we are talking about. They don't ALWAYS have great practices and workouts. If a coach is always tweeting about how "great" their team is, they need to have a higher standards for greatness. Coach Brooks of JMU is a prime example of a coach, who needs to take off the rose colored glasses or have a higher standard for greatness. He's always tweeting about how "great" his team's practice was. So much, in fact that when reading his tweets you would think, JMU can beat UConn. But then he'll go a few days without tweeting. To me, that means those days his team wasn't practicing so good and he wants to sugar coat his program. Such BS!!!

But with that said, I don't expect Twitter to become a place where a coach rips a player. But a coach could tweet "Practice wasn't good today. We need to pick it up, tomorrow." That is perfectly acceptable. The coach isn't calling out or picking on a certain player. The coach isn't being overly negative. The coach is telling followers, the truth about the program.

The other thing I hate, is coaches who do not include a link to either, their school's athletic website or the WBB page, of that athletic website. Twitter is a marketing tool, so create a link, that followers can click onto, when they are on your Twitter.

Some Big West programs that have a Twitter account; some of the accounts are general WBB and other's are the head coach, and some even have two Twitter accounts.


CSN Head Coach Flowers

UCSB Head Coach Gottlieb

LB Head Coach Wynn

UCR WBB

UCI WBB

UCI Head Coach Molly Goodenbour

Pacific WBB

UOP Head Coach Roberts