I really hope all the players adhere to the social media ban that comes with the season. Honestly, if some sort of sanction came as a result of social media, I'd only have the staff to blame for that. This is very avoidable.
What sanction could come from a post a player makes on social media?
And I for one do have a problem with the twitter-ban. It sends a poor message.
Guys should be able to say what they want. They're students, not full time employees, and not yet even adults. College should be an open forum of ideas, and in almost every other respect universities go out of their way to promote dialogue and allow even the most outrageous ideas to be voiced - whether it be on campus, in student publications, art exhibits, whatever it may be. The athletic department shouldn't be above that.
If a player had participated in a rally on campus, or in Times Square, and had a sign or made a speech with the same message as chris's tweet did - should the school ban him from doing that? Twitter shouldn't be looked at any differently.
What if he was talking at an anti-war protest in 1969? Or even 2006? Or, what if it had been a tea-party rally in 2009? Should he be blanketly banned from speaking at those events? The point is, the subject and the message should be irrelevant. College students shouldn't have their speech so heavily restrained just because they choose to play a sport.
And, if the staff and administration are truly worried that athletes might say something that tarnishes the school's reputation, then maybe they should reconsider who they recruit and how they weigh the balance between good representative of the school vs athletic ability.
The problem is, they don't want to have to do that. So, they ban kids from talking. Not cool in my opinion.