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cygnus34

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    Unbelievable, Alabama Offers 8th Grader

    in Tampa Bay and General Sports

    Posted


    TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- Alabamaextended a handful of
    scholarship offers to recruits during Saturday's junior day, but none more
    surprising than the one given to Dylan Moses, an eighth-grader from Baton Rouge,
    La.


    The 2017 prospect, who was also offered a scholarship by LSU last summer,
    made the trip to Tuscaloosa with his father, Edward Moses Jr.


    Alabama has offered a scholarship to eighth-grader Dylan Moses. Are you OK
    with this, or does it strike you as a little much?

    "For Dylan, excitement spilled over," Moses Jr. said. "When he heard those
    words from Coach [Nick] Saban, 'We're offering you,' you could see him light up.
    It was shocking because we were going in thinking we were just going to get a
    tour of what Alabama has to offer.


    "To hear, 'You're impressive, keep your grades up, we want you to come here,
    and we're offering you a scholarship now,' I can't even put that into
    words."


    It's not the first time Alabama has offered a scholarship to a younger
    recruit, but it doesn't happen very often.


    The Tide offered current 2013 signee Tim Williams as well as 2014 ESPN
    Watch List running back Leonard Fournettewhen they were both
    freshmen.


    Still, Moses might be the first eighth-grader to receive an Alabama offer.
    Other schools haven't started showing interest yet, but his father anticipates
    things to pick up in the spring and summer. For now, Alabama and LSU have the
    early advantage.


    "The battle for Dylan internally is who would be the best fit," Moses Jr.
    said. "Right now, he's an eighth-grader, he doesn't have to worry about
    that.


    "We have LSU right here. They have access to us. At Alabama, we know what
    they have over there with the great running backs and another first-rounder on
    the way. Those two schools are No. 1, and everybody else is 2, 3, 4 and 5."


    During his visit to Alabama, Moses measured in at 6-foot-1, 215 pounds.


    The offer from the Tide and the earlier offer from LSU has the 2017 phenom on
    top of the world, but his father knows it's his job to keep him grounded through
    the recruiting process. After all, he still has four years before he signs his
    national letter of intent.


    "The attention from those levels of institutions, No. 1 and No. 2 in the SEC
    and arguably in the country, he feels like a boss, like he's untouchable," Moses
    Jr. said. "We have to bring him back on down to earth, let him know that he
    still has to do his work down here to make sure that dream comes
    true."

     

    Michigan Giving ON LINE Lessons to Players

    in Tampa Bay and General Sports

    Posted

    Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said Friday that the athletic
    department had a fake online persona befriend players to teach them a lesson on
    the dangers of online relationships for athletes in the public eye.


     

    Speaking at the KeyBank Global Leaders Forum in Toledo, Ohio, Brandon
    outlined how the athletic department used an attractive woman to befriend
    athletes online and then advise them on potential dangers of their
    interactions.


     

     

    130.gifWe use
    it as an educational process. It wasn't catfishing. It's being misconstrued.
    They didn't go to that extent (like Te'o's situation). There was no interaction
    like a catfish.

    †-- Michigan spokesman Dave Ablauf, to the
    Detroit News

    Michigan hired Florida-based 180 Communications -- a group specializing in
    media training, with an additional focus on social media -- for a presentation
    in fall 2011.


     

    Brandon's comments aligned with those made by football coach Brady Hoke in
    January.


     

    "Before (the consultant) came in, we gave him 20 Facebook accounts of guys on
    our team," football coach Brady Hoke told a large group of high school coaches
    in January, according to MLive.com. "He had his assistant -- she tried to talk
    to our guys. 'Hey, what are ya doin'?' Whatever it might be. Well, two months
    later we're in a team meeting and we're on the topic of what you put out there
    in the cyber universe ... you should have seen 115 guys when that young lady --
    she was hot, now; a very, very nice-looking young lady -- when she walked into
    that meeting room, and the guys looking at each other.


     

    "Because some of them didn't use their heads when communicating back and
    forth with that young lady."


     

    Fake online profiles garnered media attention after it was revealed that a
    man posed as Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o's online girlfriend. This
    practice of online hoaxing is popularly referred to as "catfishing," but
    Michigan spokesman Dave Ablauf told ESPN.com that Brandon never used the word
    "catfishing" in his speech Friday.


     

    "We use it as an educational process," Ablauf told the Detroit News. "It
    wasn't catfishing. It's being misconstrued. They didn't go to that extent (like
    Te'o's situation). There was no interaction like a catfish."


     

    Ablauf told ESPN.com the company did not engage "in behind-the-scenes
    communications to try and get tweets or posts or anything like that," which
    men's basketball captain Josh Bartelstein confirmed.


     

    "They never talked to us," Bartelstein said."They were just doing it to see
    our Facebook profile. They never tried to talk to us or meet up."


     

    Ablauf said 180 Communications "has a female on their staff who basically
    friends student-athletes within our programs, whether it is on Facebook or
    follows them on Twitter. Once she gets access, she goes through the accounts and
    looks at them for anything that would be inappropriate or not for public
    consumption or anything that could be misconstrued as inappropriate."


     

    The first visit to campus by 180 was in the fall of 2011. The initial
    presentation was made only to football players, who were separated into
    offensive and defensive groups. During that same trip, 180 also spoke with the
    men's and women's basketball teams.


     

     

    They
    never talked to us. They were just doing it to see our Facebook profile. They
    never tried to talk to us or meet up.

    †-- Michigan basketball
    player Josh Bartelstein

    "The presentation is in regard to personal branding, how that fits within the
    framework of your team structure," Ablauf said. "And a big component is not only
    dealing with media but obviously dealing in the public space and with social
    media."


     

    Former football player Elliott Mealer remembered sitting in the team room
    during the presentation when they were shown a picture of an attractive woman on
    a projector screen, asking which of the football players knew her.


     

    "Nobody raised their hand," Mealer said. "They say, 'Well, some of you claim
    to know her on Facebook.' ... All of a sudden, she walks down the stairs to the
    front floor of our meeting room and it was just like, 'Oh, my God!' "


     

    This fall the company returned to campus to speak with all of Michigan's
    student-athletes about a range of topics.


     

    And again during the meeting -- which was split up by freshmen and
    upperclassmen -- the company showed photos of a woman and a man who had
    "friended" on Facebook or followed on Twitter various student-athletes of the
    opposite gender.


     

    "What we are trying to do, and this is the overriding theme of everything, we
    are trying to educate our student-athletes, and it goes beyond their four years
    at the University of Michigan," Ablauf said. "Everything they do today impacts
    them, will impact them beyond their career at Michigan. Any tweet, any Facebook
    post can have an impact on their future because future employers are looking at
    how they conduct themselves in these social spaces."


     

    Wide receiver Roy Roundtree said he and many of his
    teammates learned from the experience.


     

    "Some lady was sending stuff to everyone and some guys were adding random
    people to their Facebook account," he said. "The lady was working for the social
    media. Everyone who contacted her in the message were exposed. It was funny
    because a lot of guys were hitting her up and they didn't know what she looked
    like and never met her before."


     

    Roundtree said most of those "exposed" as contacting the woman were
    underclassmen.


     

    "A lot of laughter but at the end of the day they realized you can't just do
    that," he said. "It was great they had them in and talk to us."


     

    Mealer said the company had suggested creating personal Facebook pages and
    accepting friend requests only from family members and close friends or making
    Twitter pages private so that users must request to follow the individual.


     

    The company used real examples of former professional and college athletes
    who had been fired, fined or publicly embarrassed because of comments or photos
    they had posted on social media websites.


     

    Lee Gordon, vice president of corporate communications for 180, said the
    company works with with 15 to 20 colleges a year, as well as NFL and MLB teams.
    This past weekend 180 worked with rookies preparing for the NFL draft.


     

    "What a lot of college athletes don't get and don't realize is that they have
    a lot of power and influence," Gordon said. "Some of them have 10,000 followers,
    some have 200,000 followers. People eat these words, they hang on to every word.
    ... (We're) making sure you're not breaking news you shouldn't break or making
    news you shouldn't be making."


     

    Good judgment was the main lesson being preached at Michigan, but for 18- to
    22-year-olds who have grown accustomed to sharing their lives on these
    platforms, sometimes it's difficult.


     

    "I think the meeting was definitely a wake-up call for a lot of people about
    the repercussions of not being smart online," former Michigan women's soccer
    player Haley Kopmeyer said. "There was a lot of embarrassment in the room when
    the photos were revealed of the fake (Facebook) profiles, and you knew people
    around you had received those requests and maybe even responded to them."


     

    Michael Rothstein of WolverineNation contributed to this report.

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