the Twittering Irish | by Mike
By now, you've probably heard about Pete Carroll's Twitter feed. If you haven't, here are some representative Carroll "tweets":
9:07am 4/3 - Just split from staff meeting... It's already day 4, spring ball is rolling along! Really, really fired up about this thing right now!!Third-year Minnesota head coach Play4brew also jumped on the Twitter bandwagon, slavishly imitating Pete Carroll's writing style:
2:40pm 3/29 - Really jacked Coach Floyd is staying!! He's the best hoops coach in the history of SC and it's awesome he's remaining a Trojan!!!!
2:08pm 3/23 - Loved the energy and excitement out on the field today... 1 down, 14 to go... one step at a time... always competing!
8:26am 3/31 - Will Ferrell Twitter? Will he?? (get it?? it's a play on words...) Keep competing, let's turn him into a tweed!
7:08am 2/23 - The new baby is awesome and he said he'll be ready to compete in the spring!!! Picture coming tomorrow!!
6:25am 4/4 - High Fives Everywhere!! Go Gophers!Other coaches are jumping on the twitterwagon: UM_CoachRod, coachsark, and even coachronzook.
6:45pm 3/31 - Another great practice in today! We were in full pads and the guys really competed!
7:08am 3/30 - Players Play- TOUGH Players Win!!!!!!
2:34 pm 3/24 - WINNING ON AND OFF THE FIELD EACH AND EVERY DAY IS WHAT CREATES A CHAMPION!
10:01am 3/26 - Vince Vaughn is a big Gopher football fan!!
As we can see from these examples, this nascent form of coach communication has already developed its own informal rules and conventions. Among these rules and conventions are the following:
- The only acceptable forms of punctuation are exclamation points and (multiple) question marks
- Do not allow a “compete” gap – if you’re not trying to work some form of the word “compete” into every tweet, you’re just not giving 110%
- Be relentlessly positive and upbeat
- Only tweet about subjects that have you really, really pumped and/or jacked
- Mention actors
6:59am 4/4 - Scrimmaged for 47 plays. Some good, some bad. Heading in to watch the tape.This tweet violates a number of the rules. First, it contains not one, but three, periods. The only time Pete Carroll or Play4brew would ever be caught using a period is in an ellpsis. Second, the "some bad" comment hardly qualifies as positive. Finally, Charlie does not sound very pumped. Let's take a look at another:
3:26pm 4/1 - Lots of hitting in practice. Very competitive.I'm pretty jacked about the use of "competitive," but where are the exclamation points? Come on, coach.
6:21am 4/1 - Spring practice #8 this afternoon, working on short yardage & red zone. Go IRISH!We finally come across the sole exclamation point on Charlie's twitter feed, and the tweet ends with some Play4brew-worthy ALLCAPS. Nice to see the potential is there, but coach needs to work on his twitter suddenness.
To help Charlie compete with the pumped and jackedness of Pete Carroll and Play4brew, we gathered in the BGS Lounge and brainstormed some stock tweets Charlie can pull off the shelf when he's feeling short of inspiration:
- What time is it? It’s Competition 10:00 a.m.! My favorite hour of the morning! Really JACKED!!!
- Players play! Tough players WIN! Irish players WIN AT THE GAME OF LIFE
- Did you catch Oscar-nominee Jon Bon JOVI on Jimmy Fallon?? Great actor and Irish fan!
- Watching a great flick right now – Glengarry Glen Ross! Loving Alec Baldwin’s speech! But if I gave it, ABC would stand for Always Be COMPETING!!
- Coach Hart is WIRED FOR SOUND. He has great IRISH ENERGY!!
- Really, really psyched about Jeff Jackson and his team!! Going all the way next year!!! And with Coach BREY!
- Pete and Compete were in a boat! Pete fell out! Who’s left???
- Sam Young is one BIG MUCHACHO!!
- Really, really fired up about this championship micturation I just had!!
- Have you guys been reading Kevin’s posts?? Really pumped to see the new bloggers compete!!!
- Got a text from BRADY QUINN! He is really competing over there in Cleveland!!
- Just did a CHEST BUMP with the LEPRECHAUN!! GO IRISH
