“It’s 2024. Our kids know how many followers I have.”
Despite the prevalence of social media, for coaches, athletes, and sports programs it remains subject to a hazy tangle of written, loosely written, and unwritten rules and best practices. Coach Dan Mullins, Director of Athletic Performance at Allatoona High School in Acworth, Georgia, joins Coach Croc for a focused discussion on the benefits, misconceptions, and downsides of social media for coaches.
“I knew as a young guy in high school strength and conditioning, 99% of the time I’m going to be the only guy in the building who loves what I do as much as I do,” Mullins says. “So, the only way to get outside of that and learn is to network with people.”
While tackling common uses for personal brand building, forging professional connections with peers and potential future employers, and demonstrating competence and credibility, Mullins and Croc also dive deeper into the importance of social media within an athlete program as a whole.
“Our kids see what the program is putting out on social media, and especially in states like mine where people can transfer and don’t even have to move—they can just head on over there and play football—then our kids can see us doing some really cool stuff, they can see how active we are with our GPS, with all of the data we use,” Mullins says, describing the importance of social media both for buy-in as well as retention in an era of unscrupulous recruiting and routine player movement. “I’m just trying to keep the kids we’ve got. Because we’ve got some coaches in our state that aren’t afraid to DM a kid and say ‘look how many offers our kids are getting, come on over here.’”
I knew as a young guy in high school S&C, 99% of the time I’m going to be the only guy in the building who loves what I do as much as I do. And the only way to get outside of that and learn is to network, says @CoachDMullins. Share on XWith that interaction between players and coaches playing out on social media day-in and day-out, throughout all the phases of the year, Coach Croc also poses the important question: Should you follow your athletes on social media?
“Know the platform you’re working with and know what the athlete is using that platform for. Especially for football, the average high school athlete is going to use Snapchat and Instagram very differently from Twitter,” Mullins explains. “Twitter is for recruiting. We talk about social media, we talk about what your Twitter should look like. Whether it’s your bio or everything that you like and retweet, that’s an application for college. So, if you want to play college football or want to play college basketball or go beyond in whatever, they’re going to go to your Twitter because it’s got your HUDL, it’s got your stats, it’s got your NCAA ID number. So, you have to be mindful of what you are doing.”
Twitter is for recruiting. We talk about social media, we talk about what your Twitter should look like. Whether it’s your bio or everything that you like and retweet, that’s an application for college, says @CoachDMullins. Share on X
Video 1. Full episode of The Croc Show featuring Coach Dan Mullins.
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