Social media can help, hurt prep athletes, especially if they plan to play in college

The past year has been one of the most important for the future of Green Bay Preble running back Henry Geil.  

He knew that, and he wasn’t going to do anything to screw it up.

Geil started getting phone calls and receiving offers from big-time colleges selling him on a future role with their football team.

During the process, there always was a chance somebody at one of the schools would start checking Geil’s social media accounts, looking for anything that might raise a red flag. Maybe a post on Twitter or Instagram. A comment on Facebook. Perhaps a questionable Snapchat.

They had nothing to worry about with Geil.

“I am 100 percent confident that if you go on my Twitter, you won’t find any cuss words, anything demeaning (toward) women, anybody in general, no racial, no ethical problems,” said Geil, who verbally committed to the University of Iowa in April after also being offered by schools such as Michigan State, Indiana, Western Michigan and Syracuse. “It’s not a place to do that. If you really have those types of feelings, talk about it with somebody that can keep it between you two and help you try to resolve it.

“Twitter is an outlet for I’d probably say updates. Try to keep it professional. That’s what I’m trying to focus on.”

When used properly, social media can be an asset for a high school athlete hoping to play at the college level. They have the ability to post highlight reels from games or a link to their Hudl page.

They also can follow colleges they are interested in, and coaches at those schools can do the same, although they aren’t allowed to have public social media contact with potential recruits. Coaches are allowed to direct message them.

But there also are dangers. Missteps on social media can lead to athletes losing their scholarship or not getting one offered. On a smaller scale, it could lead to suspensions for athletic contests.

Like in the case of Geil, it’s not uncommon for a recruiter or employer to check out social media to get a better idea of the person they are potentially going to be signing or hiring.

The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay men’s basketball team does it, with assistant coaches monitoring players they are interested in.

UWGB coach Linc Darner said, depending on what is posted on an account, it could stop him from recruiting an athlete. He has not yet found himself in that situation.

“I think there is a lot of negativity to social media,” said Darner, who doesn’t have any social media accounts. “People feel like they can say whatever they want on social media and do whatever they want. As long as you’re not an athlete, you pretty much can. But if an athlete says stuff, then they get in trouble where a normal person can say whatever they want.”

It’s a different time than 20 years ago, when there were no phones taking pictures and video or those pictures and video being splashed all over the Internet.

But as different as the world is, the problems are the same for those in education.

Manitowoc athletic director Dave Steavpack was an assistant coach for the school’s boys basketball team starting in the mid-1990s and has been an administrator at Ashwaubenon and Manitowoc throughout the social media era.

What he was concerned about two decades ago still concerns him now, even if the way the message is delivered is different. He likes to remind students that if they won’t allow their parents to be their friends on Facebook, they should probably drop Facebook. If you’re embarrassed by them following you, he figures you might be putting things out there you shouldn’t be posting.

“Things don’t change. You are concerned about kids making the right decision and representing who they are and their parents and their school and community,” Steavpack said. “That hasn’t changed in the last 20 years or 50 years or longer.

“I don’t see that changing, other than it’s pretty difficult to get away with something nowadays because everybody has a cell phone and everybody takes pictures to glorify who they are or what they did the night before. Back in the day, you had a Polaroid picture that nobody ever carried with them or a Polaroid camera that nobody ever carried with them because it didn’t matter back then.”

Mike Frieder has been the principal at Bay Port since 2001 and had two sons, Ryan and Brett, who were athletes at the school in the past few years.

He talked to them, as well as other athletes and students, all the time about the fact that what they put on social media is no different than saying it. Even if kids protect their accounts – which often is a false sense of security – they need to be responsible for their actions and words.

Like many schools, there are now policies in place regarding social media at Bay Port. Since they have been put in place, the school has had kids face consequences or be suspended. It’s also not uncommon for students to share posts they saw on other accounts with the administration.

“It’s a huge difference than it was 10 years ago, no question,” Frieder said.

Still, Frieder thinks social media is a good thing. The Howard-Suamico School District was one of six to earn a National School Public Relations Association award for excellence in social media last year. It can be a way to promote events and achievements and celebrate students.

“I think the positives could always outweigh the negative,” said Frieder, who runs Bay Port’s Twitter account. “But you have people who don’t use it appropriately. It’s not just high school kids.”

Steavpack had to add Instagram and Snapchat to school policies in the recent past to go with Facebook and Twitter. He figures he will have to add more in the future.

“I think it’s a good communication outlet for kids and adults,” Steavpack said of the benefits of social media. “It is able to publicize things in other ways we could not do without paying a lot of money for somebody to publicize the program or an event.

“Newspaper and TV media don’t cover all things all the time for their financial reasons as well. So it allows a school district or a team to promote themselves. If they are doing it respectfully or in good taste, I don’t have an issue with that at all.”

In the end, it’s also possible there’d be fewer problems if everyone on social media viewed it the way Geil does before posting something.

“It doesn’t matter what I’m thinking on Wednesday nights,” Geil said. “Nobody cares.”