Washington State players banned from Twitter

Published On October 27, 2012 | By Jill Saftel

Many an athlete has made a blunder or two on Twitter, but you won’t see the Washington State football players doing that anytime soon. It’s not because the team is Twitter savvy, but because head coach Mike Leach has banned all of his players from Twitter.

According to Yahoo! Sports, the decision came following two inquiries from student reporters for the Murrow News Service for comment from the athletic department players’ tweets.

The tweets, according to athletic director Bill Moos, weren’t related to athletics but were on the vulgar side. Moos said that while the tweets weren’t negative toward the athletic department, they certainly weren’t representative of how he wants his program to be perceived and represented. After that, Leach put his foot down.

“Twitter’s now banned around here, so don’t expect anything on Twitter,” Leach said, according to The Spokesman-Review. “Twitter’s banned and quite frankly, if after today you see anything on Twitter from our team — and I don’t care if it says, ‘I love life’ — I would like to see it, because I will suspend them.”

Social media mistakes are common among athletes, and Leach isn’t the first coach to ban Twitter. And Washington State certainly isn’t the first school to encounter issues with its players’ tweets.

Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray had to apologize for a tweet calling out “bandwagon fans” following his team’s 41-31 loss to Mississippi State last week.

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About The Author

Jill studies journalism at Northeastern University, covers Hockey East for College Hockey News and is the sports editor for The Huntington News. You can follow her on Twitter at @jillsaftel, just don't ask her to choose between hockey and baseball, it's impossible.