LSU Exposed! Les Miles is going to have to stop eating grass and start answering for his players actions on Twitter!
Bad behavior on Twitter is seemingly everywhere these days. Last week, we published a controversial article on the socially, racially and sexually unacceptable tweets that have been published publicly by members of the 2012 University of Michigan football recruiting class. In the past ten days, three more incidents, with consequences, have landed Tweeters in some hot water:
CNN Political Commentator Roland Martin: The TV personality was suspended indefinitely by CNN over a couple of homophobic tweets made during the Super Bowl. Roland tweeted: "If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham's H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl" Earlier in the game, Martin chastised a player for wearing pink: "Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass"
GLAAD has called for Martin to be fired from CNN stating: "Advocates of gay bashing have no place at CNN."
Minnesota Wild prospect Justin Fontaine: In response to a teammates tweet praising the Foo Fighters during Sunday's Garmmy Awards, Fontaine tweeted: "I disagree, the Foo Faggots were awful. #TerribleShow #BadTaste #6205agreed foo foo !" The Wild responded immediately and suspended him for two games without pay. Fontaine later deleted the tweet and issued an apology.
Fox Sports Jason Whitlock: Whitlock, fired from ESPN in 2006 for criticizing fellow employees, may have thought he was being funny towards Asian-American basketball player Jeremy Lin Friday night when he tweeted this stereotype:
When the tweet was made, Lin had just outplayed Kobe Bryant in a nationally televised game. The Asian American Journalists Association posted a letter to Whitlock, who is African American, on its Facebook page. "The offensive tweet debased one of sports’ feel-good moments, not just among Asian Americans but for so many others who are part of your audience," the letter said. Whitlock issued an apology Monday for the tweet, blaming his childhood desire to be a comedian as the source of his unwitty humor attempt.
The outcry against Whitlock since the tweet may end up costing him his job.
Tweets have consequences. There is no denying that. But, should high school athletes be held responsible for the tweets that appear on their Twitter accounts? In a recent Chat Sports poll, 72% of voters said that the athletes should be held responsible. Yet, even though the overwhelming majority of people want to hold these athletes responsible, there was considerable backlash to the article on Michigan: hate emails, death wishes towards the writers, and even name calling such as "stalkers." In a ironic case of art imitating life, reader Aaron Geschiere made 2 extremely demeaning user-comments about the writers on the Wolverines article, only to then email the editors begging for the comments to be deleted (they were) so a potential employer wouldn't find them if they Googled his name. Ironic? Indeed.
When publishing the tweets below by members of the 2012 LSU football recruiting class, we will point out the following facts.
* Each of these recruits, on average, gave 27 interviews in the last year with MAJOR media outlets such as ESPN, Yahoo Sports or Fox Sports.
* Several of these recruits announced their college destination on national TV.
* Everyone of them held a press conference to announce their college choice.
* None of the high schools they attend have formal policies on proper social media use.
Of the four factors above, the first three are indications that these athletes knew they were no longer 'kids' and were public figures. The last one indicates that the adults in the lives of these athletes haven't prepared them for the spotlight that they are now in as incoming student athletes at the nations premier football program right now. That much change.
An LSU Athletic Dept. rep, who asked to not be named, told us "It really is puzzling. We look at these players social media accounts and shake our heads, but, we can't do anything about it until they get on campus. I know our coaches have expressed concerns on this content to the players high school coaches, but no one at that level has their head screwed on well enough to put an end to it. It is a shame too, one of these guys will end up a top ten draft pick in a few years and will have to answer character questions from NFL scouts because no one ever taught him right from wrong when he was a high school star."
Other reading on Twitter:
2012 Top recruiting classes EXPOSED by Tweets
Yuri Wright loses scholarship due to Tweets
Fallout from the Michigan article caused Michigan recruits Mario Ojemudia and AJ Williams to delete their accounts and 5-star DT Ondre Pipkins to issue the following apology after deleting his account for a week before reactivating it.
Below, we give you the racy tweets from the 2012 LSU football recruiting class. Thankfully, LSU's recruits were some of the tamer Twitter accounts we uncovered. (warning, contains explicit language and context)
Ronnie Feist, 4-star, #125 player in nation by ESPN
Derrick Raymond, 3-star, #55 S in nation by ESPN
Lamar Lewis, 4-star ATH, #231 player in nation by Rivals.com
Jerald Hawkins, 3-star OL, #15 player in Louisiana by Rivals
Trey Granier, 3-star, #19 player in Louisiana by Rivals
Derek Edinburgh, 4-star, #10 player in Louisiana by Rivals
Travin Dural, 4-star WR by Rivals
Shiro Davis - LSU commitment that switched to Texas late in the recruiting process
What other schools recruits are being exposed by Twitter?
Follow the 2012 LSU football recruiting class on Twitter:
| Vadal Alexander | None |
| Travin Dural | op grill |
| Derek Edinburgh | https://twitter.com/#!/thatsa_BIGDEE |
| Ronnie Feist | https://twitter.com/#!/TWO_different |
| Reid Ferguson | https://twitter.com/#!/White_Tiger50 |
| Dillon Gordon | |
| Trey Granier | https://twitter.com/#!/tgranier32 |
| Jerald Hawkins | https://twitter.com/#!/jeraldhawkins |
| Kavahra Holmes | https://twitter.com/#!/kavahraholmes |
| Danielle Hunter | |
| Avery Johnson | None |
| Deion Jones | None |
| Lamar Louis | https://twitter.com/#!/PurpGold23 |
| Jalen Mills | None |
| Lorenzo Phillips | None |
| Derrick Raymond | https://twitter.com/#!/DEE_RAY21 |
| Jerquinick Sandolph | None |
| Dwayne Thomas | None |
| John Thomas | None |
Alex Jones, Rick Steele and Mack Ferguson contributed on this article.
***Note from the Editor: This is obviously going to be a very controversial article. We decided to publish the middle ground of what we uncovered. For all 6 schools featured, we discovered evidence of gambling on football, drugs, alcohol on recruiting visits and mentions of improper recruiting benefits that we chose not to publish.***
Any media requests regarding this article, please email media@chatsports.com
If you would like to discuss this article with out staff, please email writers@chatsports.com
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