Don’t hit send; Don’t hit send

An embarrassing season for the Nicholls State University football team got even worse this week, as a couple Colonels showed exactly how divided and uninspired the team has become.

Last Monday evening, senior quarterback Kalen Henderson took to social media site Twitter to express his lonesome energy toward his days at University of Tulsa – the school Henderson played with for a couple seasons out of high school.

Not liking the quarterback’s perceived lack of interest and focus toward happenings in Thibodaux, sophomore linebacker Ronnie Walker fired back at Henderson and slapped down his reminiscing in his allotted 140 characters.

“Oh yea ??? . Good to know our QB FEEL THAT WAY,” Walker tweeted to Henderson.

He then followed up with a message of his own, expressing that the Colonels’ quarterback should be grateful to be the team’s starter in a quarterback battle that featured four players this past offseason.

“Three QBs had to either redshirt, bench and become a coverted (linebacker) & have to sit and watch this person belittle everything we fought for,” Walker said.

A few of the tweets were deleted in the past few days, probably per the direct orders of Nicholls coaches or staff. But no one has expressed an apology or positive sentiment in the melee.

In fact, Henderson later joked about the whole situation with former University of Tulsa men’s basketball player Patrick Swilling Jr., laughing at the idea that the Colonels’ teammates were attacking Henderson.

“…see that huh,” Henderson tweeted to Swilling Jr., the son of former New Orleans Saints great linebacker Pat Swilling Sr.

We’re not here to pick on Nicholls, nor the football team’s struggles. We’ve written plenty of columns in the past about our desire for that team to return to respectability – something we expect the Colonels to do when they get a full-time coach into its program.

Instead, this column is more about social media – this thing that we all use and love, but never quit understand its dangers and pitfalls until they are right before our faces.

I’m guilty of it myself. I am a repeat offender of posting, tweeting or instagramming things that I shouldn’t – things that I later regret saying.

Simply put, and in the easiest way to possibly explain it: Don’t hit send.

If it may offend someone, don’t hit send.

If there’s a 99 percent chance that the post isn’t going to go viral for the wrong reasons, then don’t hit send because of that 1 percent that it will.

If it’s not positive energy regarding your team, coaches or school, don’t hit send.

I know it’s tempting. I know it seems like no one important is paying attention. I know it’s tough to stay muted about sports-related topics when your friends and family are able to freely chirp away, but don’t hit send.

And the reason you don’t hit send is because of the consequences that come with spreading your message across the Internet – the consequences and assumptions that people can sometimes make when people have your thoughts publicly expressed on their computers or smart phone devices.

I’ve spoken to dozens of college coaches throughout the past few years about this topic. Through those conversations, I can assure everyone that Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, Instagram accounts and all of the other forms of a player’s social media are tracked, monitored and watched closely by college coaches scouring the country for talent.

If you’re talented enough on the field, most of the time, an opportunity to compete will present itself – no matter what’s on a given Twitter feed.

But for marginal players, sometimes it’s different. Here’s an example. Nicholls men’s basketball coach J.P. Piper said there are countless times that he and his staff are evaluating two players, both of whom possess near-equal talent and athletic ability.

Piper was open and honest about the fact that if a player shows questionable character or judgment on social media, the Colonels are less likely to offer that player a scholarship.

“We check,” Piper said. “We most definitely check. Right now, in this day in age, we Google them. Everything’s there. Anything that they’ve done that they shouldn’t have done is there. From Google, you get access to their Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. There’s no hiding. It’s all there.

“My assistants are all over that stuff.”

But once enrolled and on the collegiate playing field, athletes still should express sound judgment when speaking to the masses.

If Henderson is frustrated with the Colonels’ 2014 football season, talk about it in private with friends, teammates, family members or coaches.

If Henderson misses Tulsa that badly, then there’s a better way to go about expressing that than a social media post that makes teammates angry.

On the flip-side, if Walker sees Henderson’s post and is offended, he should text or call his quarterback instead of insulting him.

It’s tough to do, but sometimes taking the high road and saying nothing at all is the best way to go.

Don’t hit send.

For Nicholls, the incidents of the past week are just one last kick in the crotch in what is an already lost and embarrassing football season.

And we’re not indicting the character of Henderson, nor Walker in any way by writing this. They’re just kids – young men who are frustrated that their season isn’t going the way that they planned. That’s understandable. Who wouldn’t be at this point? But better judgment is needed for a college football program.

But sometimes the best words to say are no words at all, and the two Colonels’ players showed this week just how deeply frustrations have boiled over in Thibodaux – just how far the program has to go to get back to a level of competitiveness that the community can rally around and want to be a part of.

It’s just 140 characters, but in this case, they said oh, so much.

Next time, don’t hit send.

Don’t give people like me a reason to talk about the things you post on social media.

I’d much rather only talk about the things that you’re doing on the field.

#DontHitSend