UNC tracks athletes on social media

All week long students and fans alike have been glued to Twitter, desperate for updates on Kendall Marshall’s wrist.

They aren’t the only ones monitoring the social media accounts of student athletes.

The University is keeping an eye on social media as well through a third-party monitoring service called Varsity Monitor.

Sam Carnahan, CEO of Varsity Monitor, wouldn’t give specifics about the relationship between the University’s compliance department and the company, but he did confirm that UNC is a client.

“We provide social media monitoring services, so we work with athletic departments to help them keep an eye on the social media, both positive and negative behavior that’s occurring,” Carnahan said. “They can use that information for educational purposes and to work with student athletes to avoid any potential issue down the road.”

Carnahan said that UNC became a client of Varsity Monitor in the fourth quarter of 2011. Around that time, on Oct. 28, the University had its hearing with the NCAA’s Committee on Infractions.

As a part of the allegations, the NCAA charged that UNC did not adequately and consistently monitor social networking activity that visibly illustrated potential amateurism violations within the football program.

This was the only part of the allegations that the University disputed, on the grounds that it was unprecedented.

Athletic director Bubba Cunningham, who declined to comment about Varsity Monitor because he hadn’t been hired when UNC became a client, said there is still no NCAA policy regarding social media.

“I don’t know how legislation’s going to change in the future,” he said. “What we were told in the initial teleconference was that there isn’t and, in this case wasn’t, a blanket policy.

“But essentially my (take) was that regardless of how the information is presented, via social media or some other way, to an institution, that it’s our requirement or responsibility to track down information and see if there’s any potential violation.”

The athletic department’s policy on social media is that each team can outline its own rules for use.

For new head football coach Larry Fedora, it’s not so much about the rules as it is common sense.

“We have a policy, but the main thing I told those guys is, ‘Honestly, you know the difference between right and wrong. Things that we do in that meeting room aren’t for the public,’” Fedora said.

“We don’t have a team meeting and broadcast it. I don’t want it on Twitter, I don’t want it on Facebook, I don’t want it on anything — it’s for this team and this team only.”

Fedora, who has nearly 11,000 followers on his Twitter account @CoachFedora, said that he uses Twitter because the fans enjoy it and recruits pay attention to it. But he follows only two people.
“I follow two of my three daughters,” he said, “the third one will not let me follow her — she blocked me out.”

That doesn’t mean he’s not concerned with his team’s activity on social media networks, and he encourages them to err on the side of caution.

“If they put something out there, just understand that its out there for everybody to see, so you have to be smart about it,” Fedora said. “At the same time these guys are 18, 19, 20 years old and mistakes are going to be made.”

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