Tweet at your own risk: Coach rejects recruits based on Twitter handle

Social media has given anyone with a keyboard and Internet connection a megaphone to share their thoughts, no matter how important or appropriate, with the world and it’s costing potential college recruits chances to play at major universities.

“We have a social media background screening that you’ve got to go through and if you have a social media nickname or something on your Twitter account that makes me sick, I’m not going to recruit you,” Arkansas Coach Bret Bielema said at SEC media days on Wednesday. “I’ve turned down players based on their Twitter handles. I’ve turned down players based on Twitter pictures. It’s just that’s how I choose to run our program.”

It’s notoriously difficult to get things taken off the Web once they go up, and athletes, celebrities and even big companies continue to get themselves in trouble using it as well (see also: Lakers draft pick Larry Nance Jr.’s 2012 tweet about Kobe Bryant or Pablo Sandoval’s benching for using Instagram).

Shortly after Nance was selected with a first round draft pick by the Lakers he found himself making apologies for a tweet he sent off more than two years earlier when he was just a freshman forward at Wyoming.

“Gee I sure hope Kobe can keep his hands to himself in Denver this time. #rapist,” Nance wrote. The tweet surfaced minutes after he was drafted, and even after he deleted it, the message lived on in screen grabs, shared over and over.

In Sandoval’s case, all he had to do was “like” a few posts on the photo-sharing app Instagram while in the bathroom on June 17. Problem was, the Red Sox were in the middle of a game against the Atlanta Braves, a violation of Red Sox game day cellphone rules.

He was subsequently benched after admitting to using his phone.

Now, Bielema can’t possibly be the first coach to vet his players through social media, but his comment about digging into a person’s online profiles to look for red flags is a clear warning for potential college recruits. One misguided post could take you off the board.

Even once you’re on a team it could cost you. Joey Casselberry learned that firsthand when he was kicked off the Bloomsburg baseball team after sending out a tweet calling Little League World Series star Mo’ne Davis a derogatory term after learning Disney planned to make a movie about her life.

“If you want to recruit somebody of high character and value, somebody you can trust to not only watch your house, but your children, someone you can count on to share carries of 1,000 yards each rather than trying to get 1,800 for one, now you’re going to build something that matters,” Bielema said.

Character counts, kids, 140 characters at a time.

Follow Matt Wilhalme on Twitter @mattwilhalme