Culminating Project

The Lamar Cardinal Football Team

Keeping a Positive Digital Footprint

Howdy! From the home of the Lamar University Cardinal Football Team in Beaumont Texas.

Learning about Digital Citizenship over the last few weeks in the Digital Learning and Leading Masters Program here at Lamar University has allowed me to realize the positive impact I can have on our student athletes here at LU.

The assigned TedTalk by Monica Lewinsky really caused me to step back and realize the positive difference we can make if we begin to teach our athletes the importance and value of keeping a positive digital footprint through limiting our social media posts to things we wouldn’t mind our grandmothers seeing. She has taken a very bad part of her life and decided to use it to make a positive difference for others. She stresses the need to bring back compassion and empathy, and in this day and age, I whole heartedly agree with her.

That being said, my MANTRA is:

Digital Problem or Digital Solution - Which One Are You?

As coaches here at Lamar, we are expected to maintain an active and positive social presence through Twitter, as well as other popular social media sites. Our success depends upon the recruiting of high school football players who are often influenced by social media. When we are not breaking down films, practicing, planning and playing, we are recruiting. The recruiting process involves not only the athlete, but often their families and high school coaches. When we’re followed on Twitter, we want everything that comes across our feed to be positive.

As I Googled myself to verify my digital footprint, I was glad to see that mine was positive. I expected it to be, but I am also aware of how rare that can be in this day and age. I realized that even though I work with college students who are over 18, I still have a responsibility to teach digital citizenship. Our students still need to be reminded to “think before they post.” They also need to realize the value of marketing themselves in a positive light, as they will be looking for jobs in a very short time.

I was raised to think before I posted anything online and to ask myself, “Is this okay for your Mom or Pastor to see?” While I do have a Facebook and Instagram account, the bulk of my posting is on Twitter, as it is actually an expectation of my job. Because of that, my postings are always related to college football and positive aspects of our program. My postings are intentional and positive, as I want people to look at Lamar University in a good light, as the success of our program is dependent on the success of our recruiting - we need to look good to high school coaches and high school players.

Now, back to my Mantra - Digital Problem or Digital Solution, Which one are you?

I think of myself as a Digital Solution, and my project has involved making sure that my players are Digital Solutions, too. As a college football coach, I try to model good digital citizenship to my players daily. I stress to them that in a very short time, they will be leaving Lamar University with a degree, ready to search for a career. Employers will be Googling them, and they will be judged on posts on all formats. As I read over the materials in this section and watch the videos, I am going to begin stressing to my athletes that they start to use social media to advertise themselves to future employers. If you know you will be searched, you have the opportunity to make it positive, to use it for positive advertisement.

We hear so much about the negative aspects and the dangers of the internet, but we don’t stress and focus on the positive ones as it pertains to our digital footprints. Maybe by modeling and stressing positives, we can begin to decrease the negatives.

During my tenure here at Lamar, I will continue working on this project with both current athletes and future athletes to come.

Level Up!

Lewinsky, M. (2015) The price of shame. TedTalk. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_8y0WLm78U

@LamarFootball. "Wear pink to help raise awareness for breast cancer research." Twitter, 2 Oct. 2019. https://twitter.com/LamarFootball/status/1179443468457799680

@LamarFootball. "We are ready to take donations today for our food drive with @12NewsNow ! We have bins set up at Cardinal lane and at every entrance into the game." Twitter, 28 Sept. 2019. https://twitter.com/LamarFootball/status/1178010576263344129