The latest example of why you should avoid social media at all costs comes courtesy Carla Williams, the athletics director at UVA.
It appears that Williams clicked the “like” button on Twitter to comments made by a troll who was delighting in Virginia’s embarrassing one-and-done beatdown at the hands of Colorado State in the First Four on Tuesday.
The comments were made by a Seton Hall fan who had been angry-tweeting at the UVA men’s basketball account after Virginia got its NCAA Tournament bid on Sunday.
Seton Hall, you see, was among those left out of the field by the selection committee.
Seton Hall’s issue: it didn’t deserve a bid, based on a review of its resume (average computer ranking: 58.5, non-conference strength of schedule: 205).
Sorry, that’s just what it is.
The guy, of course, was having a field day with the 67-42 Colorado State win, because this is what internet trolls do.
(Aside from scarfing down mom’s yummy mac-and-cheese in their parents’ basement “apartment.”)
The first tweet: “And YOU’RE OUT! After 1 half which will go down as one of the worst in tournament history. EVERYONE IS LAUGHING AT YOUR HORRIBLE TEAM.”
Quick question from me: why is this guy YELLING AT EVERYBODY?
Seriously, caps lock, not needed.
This first one showed up under Williams’ “Liked” tweets,” as did this second one: “Hope the committee feels good about this incompetent decision to put UVA in the field.”
See how much more reasonable you sound when you AREN’T YELLING?
OK, “reasonable” might be stretching it a bit.
I mean, it’s as if the guy seems to think that a team has to win a game to justify having been put into the field.
If that’s the case, there are going to be 16 more teams that we can say weren’t deserving at the end of the day today, and another 16 tomorrow.
The logic in this dude, not strong.
That’s another issue for another day.
Eagle-eyed observers noticed the Williams Twitter likes Tuesday night, and the discussion into what to glean from the likes continues.
One train of thought: that Williams was passive-aggressively agreeing with the growing online criticism of UVA hoops coach Tony Bennett, for some unknown reason, the unknown leading to speculation that all is not well in the athletics department, at least regards the relationship of Williams and Bennett.
More on that in a minute.
The other prevailing line of thinking: an athletics department staffer had access to her Twitter account, and liked the posts under her name, probably inadvertently.
If you put me on the spot, I’d go with, it was probably Williams herself, and she just doesn’t know how to do the social-media thing; maybe she just meant to bookmark the posts, and, oops, created a mini-firestorm in the process.
Whatever was going on there, the likes are gone, but that is the only form of admission or contrition from Williams that there’s been on the issue to this point.
If it was me giving the PR advice here, I’d recommend not saying anything on the matter going forward.
I say that assuming that there are no issues between Williams and Bennett.
I will note here that there have been rumblings to that effect, but those are years-old now, and, to my knowledge, the issues between them were resolved, though my understanding of the resolution was to give Bennett, in effect, his own separate silo within the athletics department.
That’s the reason this issue with the Twitter likes had any interest from me.
I’m still coming down on the side of, there’s no there there, but …
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Chris Graham
