It wasn't that long ago that college football coaches were doing nothing more than banning their players from using Twitter or monitoring their posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social-networking sites. Now, University of Kansas football coach Turner Gill has gone a step further and implemented a no-cell-phone policy for his team. According to The Wichita Eagle, Jayhawks players are expected to hand over their phones when they arrive for game day. The devices will be returned to them in the locker room following the game.
"Everybody was kind of in shock," KU wide receiver Daymond Patterson told reporter J. Brady McCollough. "We hadn't had anything like that in the past years. (Gill) just feels like it's a business thing. He wants us to focus and be ready for the game and not be thinking about outside things."
Gill has said that he wants his players to get off their phones and talk to each other.
In August, the University of North Carolina updated its 2010-11 student-athlete handbook to stipulate that "each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitor the content of team members' social-networking sites and postings." And at the beginning of the season, Boise State and New Mexico State were among the universities that banned their football teams from using Twitter.
