College coaches being Facebook friends with HS kids

creepy...

Facebook is a weirdo haven. Here are some general rules.

13-17 year olds should not friend anyone that is more than 3 years older or younger than themselves.

18-24 year olds should have about a 5 year limit.

Once you are 25 years old, anything goes.

Family can ignore age restrictions.

Flagstaff Dropout wrote:

Facebook is a weirdo haven. Here are some general rules.

13-17 year olds should not friend anyone that is more than 3 years older or younger than themselves.

18-24 year olds should have about a 5 year limit.

Once you are 25 years old, anything goes.

Family can ignore age restrictions.

change the family rule to: avoid adding family like it is the plague

so creepy! not "hip" or "fun" idc if its a young coach. frickin weird.

i even thought there was like an NCAA rule that kids on the team cant recruit on facebook. for example a college kid currently on the team writing on a high school recruit's wall "Come to *College University*, it is the best school blah//..."

Flagstaff Dropout wrote:

Facebook is a weirdo haven. Here are some general rules.

13-17 year olds should not friend anyone that is more than 3 years older or younger than themselves.

18-24 year olds should have about a 5 year limit.

Once you are 25 years old, anything goes.

Family can ignore age restrictions.

Under 16 year olds shouldn't be on Facebook. 16-25 year olds should have a 10 year limit.

ricky-bobby wrote:

change the family rule to: avoid adding family like it is the plague

Why? You can adjust your privacy setting so that certain people can see basically nothing. Make lists.

depends wrote:

16-25 year olds should have a 10 year limit.

I bet that you fall into that age group.

16-25 is the age group that think they know about life but are totally clueless. Until you have lived on your own and paid all your own bills for a 5 year period, you are not entitled to an opinion.

Creepy, it is.

Care, Facebook does not.

Inform FBI, you must.

This is very common recruiting practice right now.

1. It is probably the easiest way to make initial contact with most high school kids. Have you ever tried to rely on high school coaches to get a kid's contact info? Facebook makes it easy and fast to contact a recruit.

2. This is like instant background check for a college coach. If you see a kid with a bunch of pictures of partying, etc, then you know what you are getting. People don't tend to hide much on Facebook, so you can get a good glimpse of what kind of kid you are recruiting and if you want to continue pursuing them or not.

Coaches can be friends with Junior after September 1 of their Junior year. NEVER can a coach post on a recruit's wall or use the Facebook chat feature. Being friends and writing messages is acceptable.

Flagstaff Dropout wrote:

Facebook is a weirdo haven. Here are some general rules.

13-17 year olds should not friend anyone that is more than 3 years older or younger than themselves.

18-24 year olds should have about a 5 year limit.

Once you are 25 years old, anything goes.

Family can ignore age restrictions.

What the hell? Not everyone is a pedophile. I'm in my 40s and facebook friends with a bunch of teenagers -- all are friends with my kids as far as I know. What's so weird about that? I happen to like teenagers -- and not in the pedo sense! Also, my kids are facebook friends with many of my adult friends. Not a big deal.

quality will be here wrote:

I bet that you fall into that age group.

16-25 is the age group that think they know about life but are totally clueless. Until you have lived on your own and paid all your own bills for a 5 year period, you are not entitled to an opinion.

What does that even mean? I'm not in that age group, by the way. But, why would I not be entitled to an opinion if I were? People can be idiots at 26+ years old.

And it's Facebook. Facebook. Not politics or religion. What is wrong with my guideline and what do you suggest? I think what I put was perfectly reasonable.

Didn't look up the rules, but this sounds right to me.

But if a coach is using facebook to contact a kid, odds are (a) they're breaking one of the above rules, and/or (b) they're using shady recruiting tactics in general. How does a coach being a facebook friend with some kid help that kid make a good decision about their future in college??

Rocky Mountain Oyster wrote:

Flagstaff Dropout wrote:

Facebook is a weirdo haven. Here are some general rules.

13-17 year olds should not friend anyone that is more than 3 years older or younger than themselves.

18-24 year olds should have about a 5 year limit.

Once you are 25 years old, anything goes.

Family can ignore age restrictions.

What the hell? Not everyone is a pedophile. I'm in my 40s and facebook friends with a bunch of teenagers -- all are friends with my kids as far as I know. What's so weird about that? I happen to like teenagers -- and not in the pedo sense! Also, my kids are facebook friends with many of my adult friends. Not a big deal.

Don't think everyone is a pedophile. I admit that I tried facebook for a month and don't understand the appeal. Next thing I knew, I had hundreds of facebook requests from friends and family. Just too much time involved in replying to wall posts and it confirmed that I'm a fairly private person. I don't enjoy putting every little thought in public. Furthermore, I'm in my 40's and can't imagine being a facebook friend with one of my child's friends. That is definitely strange to me and I can't imagine my children's friends being too thrilled if I had requested to be their friend.

This isn't necessarily a shady practice depending on how it is used. A facebook account can't be created just for recruiting purposes, but where do you draw that line? Is friending the top 50 runners in the nation ok? Or the top 100? Or just the top 10? At what point does the number of potential recruits on the line become excessive when compared to team members, other friends, team parents etc that are connected in with a coach or general team page?

This is one of the hardest rules to really enforce right now. Outside of a kid saying something, who would ever know about facebook chat. Even then its the kids word against the coaches unless theres a way to prove it...(screenshots)? Administrations don't even want to touch this one as its so different across so many schools and is changing so rapidly that they can't keep up. Unless its a blatant violation, there is definitely a lot of room for interpretation with this particular medium.

don't do it. But what you can do is make a fan page for the team you coach. Hs kids can be fans there and you can communicate with them that way over facebook, not a bad idea really.

I'd say it would be fine for a coach to set up a FB page and friend the runners AS LONG AS THAT PAGE IS ONLY USED FOR RUNNING/XC/TRACK.

Great way to post work outs, pictures of races, results, etc..

To friend kids on your personal page is indeed creepy.

Real Coach wrote:

Is it aginst the rules(contact) for a college coach to be facebook friends with HS runners?

Or is it just creppy?

Depends on the school affiliation.

Rules are all up for interpretation in the NCAA . It may or may not be a violation depending on the academic year of the athlete and what features are being used for communication. Also

As much as NAIA coaches claim there are rules, there are very few if any who get handed recruiting restrictions by the national office for recruiting violations.

Aquafina wrote:

I'd say it would be fine for a coach to set up a FB page and friend the runners AS LONG AS THAT PAGE IS ONLY USED FOR RUNNING/XC/TRACK.

Great way to post work outs, pictures of races, results, etc..

To friend kids on your personal page is indeed creepy.

I totally agree.