The New Face of the Booster: 'Influence' in 140 Characters or Less

You are not a booster, no matter what they tell you. 

This does not apply to those of you who are actual boosters, but instead, to those who believe they have a direct influence on potential football recruits who may or may not be considering your school a.k.a. pretty much everyone with a functioning Twitter account.

Ben Dyson, Oklahoma State’s assistant athletic director of compliance, says otherwise. Speaking with the The Daily O’Collegian, he had this to say about how the classic booster has a much different face and role through social media:

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As soon as you contact a recruit and try to persuade them to come to your school, you automatically become a booster because you are helping a recruit come to a specific institution. Boosters aren’t allowed to recruit prospective student-athletes.

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He is right in that regard, but the word "influence" is where we differ in opinions. He went on to close that gap, however, by saying the following:

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As soon as you’ve done anything to reach out to them, you’ve already crossed the line.

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This, unfortunately, is something that still needs to be said. It will not hit the ears that it needs to, but in today’s age of instant access to players through social media, it bears repeating. 

His idea of “crossing the line” is also different than mine. He’s concerned about the recruiting process; I’m focused more on the fact that people actually reach out to high-school athletes on a daily basis. We underestimate those willing to cross the line. For them, there is no line in place to cross.

Social media’s impact on this recent development cannot be understated. In fact, it has single-handedly made this possible. 

Twitter is wonderful because it allows Joe Sports Fan to feel some sort of connection with his favorite athletes. Joe knows when they’re eating a sandwich, and he has the freedom to tell them his thoughts about said sandwich.

It's this same freedom that also brings out Twitter's truly ugly side. Joe can be cruel if he wants because no one is stopping him, and it’s his prerogative to be an idiot if he so desires.

Twitter and the booming business that is recruiting have proved to be a rather unfortunate combination. High-school athletes are choosing to market themselves earlier by getting involved in social media and, in turn, open themselves up to the same kind of treatment that is usually left to the professionals. The professional athletes, that is, not the "professional," 140-character hecklers.

Fans—outside of those who had some sort of intimate connection to a player—never had this avenue to reach out to them on a personal level. Social media has given them a direct line to communicate to these young men, even if the conversation is very much one-sided. All it takes is an egg avatar, an @ symbol and a smartphone.

And now, @GEAUXTIGERS666 (note: not an actual Twitter handle...yet) can express his persistent desire for some of the nation’s best high-school athletes to attend his school. It will not work, of course, but he thinks it will. Or maybe he doesn’t, and he just can’t help himself. Regardless, that doesn’t make it any less wrong. In the process, he can even add "booster" to his Twitter bio, right next to "loves fishing and grilling."

As if this online “recruiting” process isn’t bad enough, the disappointed 140-character response is truly rock bottom. Only one fan base can embrace the bizarre glee when a five-star wideout throws on a hat with their logo stitched into it.

For the fans of schools with hats left motionless on the table, this excitement snaps directly into disappointment and, even quicker, displeasure. Some then feel the need to take to Twitter to express their frustration directly to that person. It’s fandom in its most pathetic form, and you've likely come across it before.

There’s no stopping someone from harassing an 18-year-old through an avatar, but analyzing this as anything more than stupidity through a few obsessive fans is also downright absurd. Their influence on an athlete is nonexistent. Breaking: “Hey, the weather is great here, you should come visit” will not land you that four-star defensive tackle you desperately need. Shocking, I know.

And so you have a handful of disconnected souls hassling high schoolers, and the NCAA, which will never be able to fully grasp this situation. That’s not a knock on the NCAA, but instead, an assessment of the social-media landscape, which has a Wild West feel for something so technologically advanced.

College football has been dealing with booster problems for decades now, but even the shadiest boosters had faces and names and paper trails to cover up. The modern-day "booster" is nothing more than a fan with selfish intentions and high-speed Internet access. If you are one of the few users who feels obligated to hand out unwanted advice and, more specifically, words of venom, well, there’s no sense in telling you to stop because you clearly won’t. That train of reason left the station.

Still, perhaps something written in your language will get through.

#PleaseDontTweetAtRecruits