Recruitment & Retention

The Dark Side of Twitter and the College-Recruitment Process

By Bryan Toporek — May 14, 2013 1 min read
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Andrew Wiggins, the consensus No. 1 men’s basketball recruit in the class of 2013, announced today that he’d be playing for the University of Kansas Jayhawks this coming fall.

Within minutes of his announcement, his Twitter mentions were flooded with an endless wave of hate speech.

A number of fans from the schools Wiggins spurned (the University of Kentucky, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Florida State University) took to Twitter to express their frustration with his decision, to say the least. Bloguin.com captured a sample of those very-much-not-suitable-for-work tweets, for anyone who’s morbidly curious.

More than one person told the 18-year-old budding star that they hoped he tore his anterior cruciate ligament, simply because he wasn’t attending the school of their choice. Others called him basically every vile name you can possibly imagine.

These Twitter critics aren’t necessarily representative of their overall fan bases, of course. A number of fans from those schools took the classy route by sending their best wishes to Wiggins via Twitter, despite their disappointment.

It’s no secret that athletes of all ages face this type of backlash from disgruntled observers. Many find it particularly deplorable when it’s targeting a youth, however. Would

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Schooled in Sports blog.