Should I get a twitter?

Now that we're more settled here in Fresno, I'm tempted to get involved with coaching AAU hoops here. My wife has connections with the Cleveland family and I'm going to get the word out to the local head AAU coaches and see what's out there (Ironically, I just met their dentist and their pediatrician last week... now our dentist and pediatrician).

My job and my wife's amazing business is starting to offer me enough free time to consider getting involved and it's something I love and was good at back in the day.



My question is if twitter is worth the time. Would anyone here be interested if I were active in west coast AAU tournaments, etc. to hear about prep kids and their recruiting?

And no, this is not about going Ogletree on everyone and trying to make a dime on it. It's my hobby and recruiting is without a doubt one of my vices and greatest time sinks. (You may say that I'm a dreamer... but that's what's so fun about prep hoops is trying to project talent.)



I figured that I pay for my TBS subscription mostly because John Palica (and he's just a subscriber) runs one of the bigger AAU franchises in Utah and I love to hear his insight (though he tends to be like a parent when he discusses his own athletes and they're bigger in his head than they usually are on the court... though that's probably the sign of a good and loyal AAU coach.) It's the only reason I still have a TBS subscription, because where else am I going to get that info unless I'm at all his teams games? So Talo and others can thank JPal.



My recruiting experience has seen good and bad. Good - signing the #1 scorer in the country to UMKC, Michael Watson. Bad - spending too many AAU and prep games sitting next to slime balls (so called street brokers) like Myron Piggie. (If I had a twitter back then I could have broken soo many big stories before they came to light... though I could have ended up dead in a ditch too I suppose).



http://espn.go.com/magazine/guff_20020128.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



I also badly want to start a twitter so I can correct Jason Sheperd on what he thinks he knows about Kansas City ;) He left when he was 13, but appears to be an authorative expert on MY town.. (I left when I was 40...)



I guess my question is, is it getting to the point that if you want to discuss sports, do you need a twitter and would it help anyone if I tweeted at this summers AAU tourneys?



If anyone thinks that they use twitter enough and craze hoops recruiting info and insight enough to follow me on twitter, I think I'll take the plunge and start taking it serious.



I really really wish TBS would focus more on basketball and basketball recruiting... maybe if I take this far enough I'll ask them to let me get involved. Their hoops coverage is atrocious, but not being on the west coast hasn't given me enough insight to really warrant getting involved with BYU hoops recruiting information decimination. Most tournaments on the west coast are played in Vegas, San Fran, or southern Cali.. all within driving distance for me now.

I have a twitter account, but have never used it. I would probably get reactivated to hear what you have to say.

BYULV wrote:
I have a twitter account, but have never used it. I would probably get reactivated to hear what you have to say.

I have one. Rarely tweet. I would follow. If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.



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Yes, you should.



I think twitter is a great communication tool.

Yes for yourself not us. I would not be interested unless they were being recruited by BYU. I hope you find some guys for us but then I don't know the rules for recruiting violations so I will just leave it at.

scott715 wrote:
Yes for yourself not us. I would not be interested unless they were being recruited by BYU. I hope you find some guys for us but then I don't know the rules for recruiting violations so I will just leave it at.

AAU coaches are sadly very influential. Look at my Myron Piggie article. Some AAU franchises have million dollar sponsorships and some coaches have been paid in shoeboxes full of cash from Nike and Adidas. They've cleaned it up some, but no doubt AAU coaches have a lot of power. The independent scouts, do it because they enjoy it. You're right though, I'm interested in AAU and recruiting well beyond BYU..(I love basketball) BYU has very specific recruiting guidelines and most basketball players do not fit, however when you go to these big summer and spring tourneys, you can find BYU recruits and commits very easily because there are sometimes 1000 players in a single event and I wouldn't miss one second to videotape and grade them when I see them in person.



Honestly I think the greatest opportunity for BYU to find a diamond in the rough is overseas (this is getting a bit harder as many hoops countries have paid programs to sponsor the players from age 14 and on and they're not eligible to play in college in the states now), in Canada or the JUCO route (you can miss on juco kids too but I love Skyler Halfords game) and to be honest if you're not Duke... you have to go everywhere you can to find big men. Somewhere there's a 6'10" version of Ziggy Ansah just dying for a chance to come to BYU. In the states, that same player has been seen playing since he was 6 years old and possibly recruited since then. It's much easier to find guards that have upside that people have missed than to find big men that people have missed on. (check the top 15-50 rosters (the top 15 get the pick of the litter) and see how many foreigners are on those rosters. Coach Rose is fairly lucky, if a kid is LDS and can play hoops, I promise you there's a bishop or church member letting them know about him... worldwide. There's no doubt that helps. I promise you that the 1st time the staff ever heard about Jimmer was from a church member.

Cougarbib wrote:

I have a twitter account, but have never used it. I would probably get reactivated to hear what you have to say.

I have one. Rarely tweet. I would follow. If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.



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Yep, I don't make a habit of posting unless it's about business. btw - bib I expect you're going to get flamed about your posting here now, be prepared.

If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.

Just asking for trouble ;)

I'd get on the Twitter.



First, would be fun to follow what you say. Second, even if you run out of things to say it's useful as a listening tool. The athletes you coach will be on it. You could also follow schools and coaches you're interested in forming relationships with.



Professionally, I oversee social media for my employer. I do have a personal account. I'm not big into self promotion or feel I have much to say so am not actively engaged in growing my Twitter followers (wouldn't mind a few more) or coming up with content. That said, I find it very useful in seeing what journalists I interact with are saying, competitors are doing, etc.



Let us know if you create one.

Craig,



Personally I don't really like reading tweets for analysis other than for snippets that point to a more detailed report.



I love basketball so I would probably be interest in reading a blog or website you wrote stuff for, but I tend to stay away from twitter.



On the other hand, giving yourself an excuse to do more of what you love sounds like a good idea to me.

Qman wrote:
Craig,



Personally I don't really like reading tweets for analysis other than for snippets that point to a more detailed report.



I love basketball so I would probably be interest in reading a blog or website you wrote stuff for, but I tend to stay away from twitter.



On the other hand, giving yourself an excuse to do more of what you love sounds like a good idea to me.

Just seems like everyone has a twitter now, so I'm not sure I could effectively do what I'd plan to do without one. Even the athletes themselves use them and so they'd also communicate that way. I had erroneously written off twitter, but I think it's here to stay and now I feel like the 70 yr old guy that finally started emailing.

craigoscarson wrote:

BYULV wrote:
I have a twitter account, but have never used it. I would probably get reactivated to hear what you have to say.

I have one. Rarely tweet. I would follow. If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

Yep, I don't make a habit of posting unless it's about business. btw - bib I expect you're going to get flamed about your posting here now, be prepared.

If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.

Just asking for trouble ;)

Twitter is different. It pushes info out to you. When your text messages start pouring in at inopportune times it is a much bigger problem than when you come to a site at your convenience and find unintetesting stuff to ignore.



Example. Follow CougarBlue. Fine most of the time. Then all of a sudden a text every 2 minutes during soccer games, volleyball, everything.



If I was following you and you were tweeting about BYU recruits, I would read every tweet. If you are tweeting 1% BYU, and 99% other, I would drop off necause if I follow you I get all of it or none of it.



So even though CougarBlue tweets brought me immediate alerts of bresking news by text, the avalance of tweets during obscure sporting events eventually led me to drop off.



I generally follow very specialized twitter acounts or individuals I am very interested in.



If you followed me, I average sending less than 1 tweet per month and I would not expect anyone but family or close friends to be interested.



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Cougarbib wrote:

Cougarbib wrote:

I have a twitter account, but have never used it. I would probably get reactivated to hear what you have to say.

I have one. Rarely tweet. I would follow. If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

Yep, I don't make a habit of posting unless it's about business. btw - bib I expect you're going to get flamed about your posting here now, be prepared.

If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.

Just asking for trouble ;)

Twitter is different. It pushes info out to you. When your text messages start pouring in at inopportune times it is a much bigger problem than when you come to a site at your convenience and find unintetesting stuff to ignore.



Example. Follow CougarBlue. Fine most of the time. Then all of a sudden a text every 2 minutes during soccer games, volleyball, everything.



If I was following you and you were tweeting about BYU recruits, I would read every tweet. If you are tweeting 1% BYU, and 99% other, I would drop off necause if I follow you I get all of it or none of it.



So even though CougarBlue tweets brought me immediate alerts of bresking news by text, the avalance of tweets during obscure sporting events eventually led me to drop off.



I generally follow very specialized twitter acounts or individuals I am very interested in.



If you followed me, I average sending less than 1 tweet per month and I would not expect anyone but family or close friends to be interested.



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Ah I get it, my twitter would be very specific to BYU sports recruiting. I prefer to try not to dabble into everything and then have no resounding message wherever it is.

If you do join the Twitter, I strongly recommend TweetDeck for your desktop/laptop.

Gunk wrote:
If you do join the Twitter, I strongly recommend TweetDeck for your desktop/laptop.

Gunk



For sending tweets or for following tweets? Sending, I presume. What does it do?



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craigoscarson wrote:

Yep, I don't make a habit of posting unless it's about business. btw - bib I expect you're going to get flamed about your posting here now, be prepared.

If someone I follow gets too active in volume - I quit following them. Only tweet the important or it just becomes noise.

Just asking for trouble ;)

One of the best posts on CougarCorner.

Craig

Example today. If I had someone to follow that tweeted stuff like Dastrup changing his mind so that I would be one of the first to know - maybe even make tje 1st to post it on CC, that is what had me following CB until they buried me with play by play from minor sports sending me texts by the dozens in the middle of an important mtg - happened several times.



The beauty of Twitter is the instanraneous timing and spontaneity of it via text messaging - and that is the downside as well.



Quality trumps quantity on Tweets.



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The sad news about Todd Christensen is another example of where I would have valued an immediate tweet.



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Cougarbib wrote:

If you do join the Twitter, I strongly recommend TweetDeck for your desktop/laptop.

Gunk



For sending tweets or for following tweets? Sending, I presume. What does it do?



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

Sending and following.



In addition to allowing you to post to your own account it let's you see/follow various terms or feeds in one place. You set up "columns" and each column is a custom feed you set up. For example, I use it for work and have one column set up that shows me all the posts where my company is mentioned. I have another that shows me all the posts where my competitors are mentioned and I have a few others showing me all the posts related to different trends within my industry. You can have a column show your followers tweets, the tweets of those you follow, a certain hashtag, whatever. Any Tweet you see you can react to directly through TweetDeck. For example, someone tweets about a trend I'm following, I see it my column and I reply directly back through TweetDeck.



I honestly don't know how anyone handles being on Twitter without something like TweetDeck.

If Craig wants to really do a service project he could use a tool like this to grab the hot off the press stuff like CC grabs in the tweet box and breaking news box and tweet out all BYU Sports related headlines - but skip all of the play by play from games. I would follow.



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I don't know exactly what your plan is for the future, but I think that Brandon Gurney's twitter is a very good example of how it can be focused and used as an information tool. I am a mom with 4 kids who happens to be a BYU alum and a sports fan and I asked him a question via twitter about BYU football yesterday and he answered it. That was cool considering I'd never otherwise bump into him and be able to do that. He covers prep basketball and only tweets when he has something to say. Just my 2 cents...but I find value in that kind of info and think that there are people who have shown how it can work in sports and prep basketball specifically.