Social Media & College Sports Podcast

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Viral Video: As The Play Unfolds

(After watching the video, watch it again and watch the ball after it hits the girl in the face.)

Viral videos are a great topic of conversation. All is takes is one person to bring up something they saw online or on YouTube, and it seems as though everyone else chimes in with a funny video they watched. Viral videos captivate the online world for many reason. Some are funny, while other are emotional. In this case, it is one that is funny. For those of you who already watched the video, it is funny because nothing serious happened to the other girl. It is something that is apart of the game. This video was always special for me because I got to see the progression of the video becoming viral. In most cases, we don't see the video until after it had become viral.

The girl in the video that hits the ball is someone I know. Her name is Mikaela Foecke, and she played for the club that I coached for during my undergrad years in Iowa City, Iowa. She is from a small town about an hour south of Iowa City. In this video, she is a sophomore in high school. Mikalea is now going to be a senior in high school, and it committed to play at the University of Nebraska, as you could probably guess after seeing how hard she can hit the ball.

This video went viral for many different reason. One is because as a sport consumer, we love to see the moments in sport that are "bloopers". I love watching the "Not Top 10 Plays"every Friday on ESPN. The Not Top 10 is a spin off of ESPN's Top Ten Plays they do everyday. The Not Top 10 are ten plays from the week before that are usually bloopers or something else funny that happened in and around sport. This video is one of those plays. It catches the viewers attention because someone took a rocket to the face. Luckily, the girl was okay, so they video had success traveling around the country. If the girl would have been seriously injured, this video would not have been so viral.

Next, I believe the video has so many views because of the content in the video. The video isn't something that views just watch once to get the full effect. The first time watching it, I just watched the girl hit the ball and the girl that got hit. The second time through, I was told to watch the little boy running out of the stands. The little boy who is running out of the stands gets hit by the ball that ricocheted off the girls face. Having to watch the clip multiple times allowed the video to get a much larger number of views if someone would have only watched it once. I watched it three times until it had the full effect.

Sutton Impact: Expanding My Network

Throughout the past month, I have been traveling around the Midwest working different camps and different universities. For any of you who have worked camps before, you know this grind. For those of you that do not, let me paint a picture for you. The days begin at around 8am every morning and end at about 9:30pm. There is on average of 7-9 hours of volleyball a day, with middle school and high school athletes that, well... challenge me I guess you could say. It is a grind, both on the coaches and players. I began my journey at the University of Minnesota Camp for 4 days, then immediately traveled to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where I spent the next 6 Days. From Madison I came directly to Evanston, IL to Northwestern University, where I just finished day 2 of 4. So if you do the math, that is 14 straight days of camp. Many people, along with my self have questioned why I would do this many straight days of camp. Here a some of my reason.
1- I need cash. For those of you also going to grad school and attempting to live off of a G.A. stipend, you know what I mean.
2- I get to learn to things from new people. I have adopted a theme to this tour around the Big Ten, and that is to learn something from every coach I meet. It does not have to be from a big named coach, or something that will change my outlook on coaching. But rather one thing that will help me be a better coach.
3- TO NETWORK!!!!! (See More Below)

I have heard from many people the more contacts I can make in the coaching industry, the better off I will be. When I worked camps in previous summers, it was to network with other college coaches. Now that I am a college coach, I am still networking with other college coaches, but now working on building my club coach network. Having contacts from different clubs from all around the country will greatly help my ability to recruit.

I have a couple pieces of advice I would give to others in my position about building a network. I feel like these are the ways that will help land a full time job that fits me right come December of this year.

- Be a repeat coach at camps. This is my second summer at Wisconsin, and third in a row at Northwestern. I have strengthen those relationships with those coaches greatly by coming back to their camp. Both staffs have said they will keep me in mind when they hear of openings come December.

- Be Yourself.  If I have learned one thing in my first year of coaching is that I want to always be at a school and town that is the right fit for me, regardless of wins and losses. I am a coach, I am supposed to win the right way regardless of what school I am at. Being myself will only put me in good situations that will help me advance my career.

- Be willing to lend an extra hand. There is always odd jobs that the need to be done. Volunteer to always help. It sticks out in those coaches minds!

- Have meaningful conversations. I have gotten the opportunity to sit down with many different coaches to discuss many different things. Coaching styles, recruiting philosophy, and where I see myself in five years, to name a few. Most coaches with many years of experience enjoy being a mentor. It is our job to reach out to them.

- Lastly, find a mentor who you trust. I have found a couple of people who I worked for in college that have been a tremendous help to me. Not only to help me find a job, but also to bounce ideas off of. We have long in depth discussions about the way we would do things if we were head coaches.

Technology Log 7/10

In our first blog post, we were supposed to deprive ourselves of technology. To go along with this, we all kept logs of our experience. When would we have used technology? Did we forget we were depriving ourselves and use technology? I kept a pretty in-depth log of my experiences that day. It was interesting to look back and see how my day went.

Now, I thought it would be interesting to log the amount of times in a day that I do use technology. So... here it is!

10:00am- Woke up to the alarm on my phone (technology). Instantly checked to see if I had any notifications. I had one text message that I responded to, 4 emails in which I didn't need to respond to any, and 1 missed call from my mom. I checked Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to see what I missed over the last 12 hours.
10:30am- checked Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter again. At this point, I realized I should just keep a running tally of the times I open these apps, rather than logging every time I check it (see totals at the bottom).
11:00am- I was running an errand in my hometown. I embarrassingly admit that I had to use Google Maps to get to where I needed to go because I had never been there before. If I already didn't think I was hooked on technology, I just proved it right there.
1:00pm- Used my phone to upload a check on the Wells Fargo App, and then paid my credit card using the Chase App. Using my phone makes the process of paying bills so much easier!
2:00pm- I was bored, so when I am bored, I look up random YouTube videos... that last for an hour...

Usage Logs:
Facebook- 20
Twitter- 35 (1 Tweet)
Instagram- 38
Text Messages Sent and Received- 63

Overall, I realized how much my phone is used to do everything but make calls. I barely use my iPad or laptop, because using a phone is so much easier. I even find myself thinking my iPad is too big and that I would rather have an iPad mini, now which I make myself sound extremely spoiled and needy. Regardless, like most people, technology makes our lives easier. I can proudly say I rely on it way more than I should!

Melbourne Vixens Website

The first thing I did when I went onto the Melbourne Vixens website was to attempt to find out what Net Ball was. I didn't find anything on the website, and at first I was a little annoyed. Then I compared this to the Green Bay Packers website; there is nothing on that website explaining what football is. Here are some of my thoughts of this website. 

Here is the link to the website: www.melbournevixens.com.au

Ease of Accessibility/Navigation
The website is pretty easy to get to. It loaded quickly and seems to be organized, even though it is not the way I would organize it. Everything you need is on the front page, or there is a tab that directs you to a certain area. The site is pretty easy to navigate. There are different news stories on the front page that rotate. I would have liked to have an easier time finding the tab for the roster and coaches. It is under a tab called "2014 season". I am used to these things being highlighted on college and professional teams websites in the US. Also, with how big social media is today, I would move the Twitter feed to top of the front page, instead of the bottom. They do have links to their social media (Facebook, twitter, Instagram). The mobile site is pretty standard, nothing too special about it. Navigating it is average compared to other teams. 

Use of Interactivity
There is nothing on the website that engages fans to stay. This site is good for information, but not much of anything else. There isn't even a schedule or results tab that for fans to look up results and box scores. There is nothing that grabs my attention to continue to look around. 

Use of Video
This area is probably the most lacking. There is no video that creates an identity for the Vixens. The video links are to the league site, which has video of other teams in the league. The Vixens need to generate more content to put on their website in terms of video. The video they do have is more player interviews than highlights. The video screen on the front page takes me to another website. It is a little frustrating when I am trying to watch video and it keeps taking me to a different website that takes a while to load. The promotional video is good, it caught my attention. But I wonder how many people didn't waste the time going to the other site. 

Quality of Content
There are a lot of different areas to this website that gives a fan insight into what the Vixens are all about. The tabs are unorganized, in my opinion. There is a membership tab, but it doesn't say what the membership is, or the benefits from being in it. It also says to email a list of things (name, phone, birthday, location, etc) to an email address. This could be the perfect place for text boxes that can be submitted, so it would be much easier on fans to become a member. 

The biggest change I would make to this website is the video content. Netball seams to be a game that is fast paced, and I would have like to see that on their website, and not have to go to YouTube to see highlights. The lack of interactivity wouldn't make me want to stay on the site for very long. Also, I am still confused as to where the schedule is for the team. Upcoming games and past results should be highlighted on the home page. 

Technology Deprivation- Thursday May 29th

Disclaimer: I tried to plan out my day so that it wouldn't be as hard to not use technology. I kept my reading assignments for today. Planned out lunch with my friends yesterday. Turns out, it is still hard. Regardless of what I had planned where I didn't need technology, I still normally would have used it in those situations.

9:30am Woke up, I usually check all of my social media and email, but instead I didn't. So that was different. I am home at my parents’ house and in the mornings usually look through the paper. But today I actually read a lot more of it because I didn't have anything else to read when I was "waking up".

10:30am I was watching TV and I found myself during commercials itching to use my phone and go on social media. So I actually had to listen to the commercials.

11:00am My friends and I were in a group message about where we were going to eat, and I just called one of them instead of responding to the messages

11:20am I wanted to look up what time a restaurant opened. Instead I pulled out the phone book (I was surprised to see my parents had a phone book) and called.

Random thought #1 I think it's more difficult to not use the Internet or helpful apps rather than not using social media. I look up EVERYTHING on the Internet on my phone

Random thought #2 Any little bit of down time I have that I'm not doing something I pick up my phone, and then remember I am detoxing.

12:00pm I am going on the river all day tomorrow, and I was going to check my phone to see what the weather was going to be like. I instead checked the newspaper to see if her weather was in there, and it was! Sunny and 84 tomorrow in Dubuque, IA if anyone is curious.

1:30pm I went to go get something from my dad at his work and I was going to text him telling him I was on my way then I realized I was texting and I just called him.

2:30pm Mistake #1 I use an app on my phone to track my spending so I can attempt to budget. after I checked out and target I put the amount in my phone and then realized I was using my phone for more than a phone. I didn't event notice it. I think sometimes we use technology without even notice it.

3:10pm I am watching lecture from this morning and it is much easier to listen when I am not distracted or tempted to use my phone. I always know my phone is distracting, yet I still use it all the time.

3:45pm I am a person who can't have any notifications on their phone. Right now I have 7 emails and 1 snap chat and it bugs the crap out of me that I have those notifications on there. It isn't the unknown that bugs me; it's just the notification. Maybe I have OCD?

4:40pm Mistake #2 I sent my first text of the day. My boss texted me, so I decided to respond, rather than calling her. It was only a small detail and I only sent one text and the conversation was over. These are times texting is extremely convenient.

5:45pm one of my friends called me to go out to eat tonight. He told me the place and then I usually would have gone to the Internet to look up the menu.

I went out with some of my friends and it was really easy to not be on my phone. That is one thing that I have gotten better at over the past year is not using my phone when I am with other people. One thing that bugs me about our generation is when we are constantly on our phones in social settings. Not to say that I am not guilty of this, but it is something I have gotten much better at.

I realized that I missed using the Internet on my phone and computer the most. I didn’t check social media the entire day and that didn’t bother me at all. At the beginning of the day, I thought not checking social media would have been the hardest. I use Safari on my phone to check or confirm EVERYTHING. I guess I am happy that I could live without social media, for at least day.