Twitter. By now, you have likely heard of it. By the name of it, you would think it was a hot new toy for toddlers, or a new female pop group. However, names can be deceiving. In actuality, Twitter is a communication platform so powerful that it has the potential to topple kingdoms.
Twitter has been gaining steam for months as a popular way for marketers to reach and interact with their customers, and for news outlets to get an instant pulse on the events of the day, the hour, the second, and the millisecond. Twitter is the world’s largest focus group, chat room, news desk, and water cooler wrapped into one incredibly simplistic web platform.
Recently, the power of Twitter has even been harnessed for the first time to support an underground movement to defeat fascism and defend Democracy. Iranians have been using Twitter as a means to show the world the injustices they are facing in their land, even after the oppressive government has tried to shut down all communication pathways to the outside world.
When Twitter isn’t functioning as the Web 2.0 version of the Underground Railroad, it is often being used by fans to contact and interact with the subject of their fanatical idolatry. It seems that anyone that is anyone is twittering, tweeting, or twitting these days.
Ashton Kutcher (
@aplusk for the cool kids!) has set up a micro virtual kingdom on Twitter, being one of the first celebrities to truly use the platform to its potential. When he isn’t busy posting pictures of his MILF wife’s hindquarters for his adoring fans to see, he is re-tweeting messages concerning social causes, updating fans on his latest projects, and communicating with his fan base.
In recent weeks, we have seen an influx of sports stars enter the world of Twitter. Taking a cue from those who cover them, several well known sports stars have begun using Twitter as a means to reach their fans and further quench their indomitable egos. From Shaq (
@The_Real_Shaq) to the NFL’s chirpiest WRs Terrell Owens(
@TerrellOwens81) and Chad Ochocinco (
@OGOchoCinco), Twitter has become a virtual field for trash talking and excessive celebrations.
And best of all, there are no refs to take their fun away.
However, this wild west mentality might soon change.
Social networking sites have already landed several athletes from the sports world into steaming tar pits. A player at the University of Texas got
busted for some racist remarks he made on his Facebook status last year. A little-known cornerback for the Philadelphia Eagles also got in a bit of a bind when a photo of himself chortling next to what he would have us believe was a tobacco bong and a line of sugar was
posted on Facebook. Just prior to the NFL draft, there was a stir regarding an
apparently racist Facebook group that several USC stars joined, but was since deemed to be an inside joke within the team. While several players managed to free themselves from the scorching social tar they found themselves in, others were buried under the pressure.
Twitter, unlike Facebook, poses an even bigger potential pitfall for players since their tweets are not only limited to their close friends. The entire world can read their tweets. From the embarrassing “Bout 2 take a dump.” to the “I’m in the OC. Hit me up y’all!”, its all there for every fan, reporter, and coach to see.
Be careful what you tweet, or it will be twittering its way onto the next SportsCenter broadcast. Twitter is one little birdie that can’t be subdued.
While freedom of speech is the foundation of our Democracy and the right of every free human on the planet, it also poses a dilemma for coaches and organizations that hope to keep their secrets, issues, and strategies in-house.
The Miami Dolphins, under the stewardship of Bill Parcells, has been known for their less-than-democratic policies on the media. Loose lips sink ships, and the Tuna isn’t too fond of the water, despite his namesake.
Parcells, Ireland, and Sparano do their best to control the messages and communications coming out of their complex. In the recent war of words between LB Channing Crowder and Rex Ryan, someone made it known that it was time to drop it because the usually talkative Crowder became mute as a mouse within days.
Now, the twittering menace is seeping into their complex like a bad infestation of termites—threatening to take down the restrictive media structure they have so painstakingly built. Yes, some Miami Dolphins have discovered Twitter and now have a direct line to the masses.
While rookie Sean Smith (
@SeanSmith4) has mostly just been updating fans on how he is adjusting to the NFL and Miami, WR Davone Bess (
@Lambo_Weezy) has taken a far different approach.
[
UPDATE: Lambo_Weezy appears to be an impostor. I asked him to explain some pics on his TwitPic account and he removed them. Although the pics looked somewhat like Davone, it didn’t look like the real Davone. However, he looked close enough that he probably fools people at clubs to think he is the real Davone. In any case, the gist of this story still holds. I will update this story again once I find out the true identity of Lambo_Weezy. Check
here for the latest.]
Davone pounced on the Twitter scene like he was orchestrating the Wildcat in Foxborough—pulling no punches. Yesterday, Lambo challenged Titans RB Chris Johnson (
@ChrisJohnson28) to a foot race. The Dash of the duo formerly known as Smash and Dash took offense to this challenge, stating, and I RT (RT = ReTweeting which basically means Quote) “Feel insulted because somebody want to race me who ran a 4.64 i ran 4.24 do the math kill me.”
Since this exchange, Lambo (Davone) has upped the stakes, saying that they should broadcast the race and the loser must shave their dreads off for charity. OGOchoCinco, the reigning king of NFL Twitterland, appeared to reach out to the NFL Network to air the duel.
But Davone took the social networking thing to the next level when he posted a link to a Ustream feed so that fans and twitter followers could hear him live. While Ustream generally allows video to stream as well, Davone for whatever reason did not make use of this feature, as only his voice could be heard during the broadcast.
Many Dolphin fans took to the message boards to debate whether Lambo_Weezy was the real Davone or not, since some of his antics seemed out of character for the reserved nature of his public persona. However, OGOchoCinco (the verified REAL Chad Ochocinco) seemed to confirm that @LamboWeezy was indeed the real Davone Bess.
A man has every right to spend their free time however they see fit as long as it falls within the realm of legality and social mores, but they must also act in a responsible way if they don’t want the authority of their employer to whack them upside the head.
It is for this reason that platforms such as Twitter are so dangerous for young athletes and so threatening to tight-lipped organizations such as the Dolphins.
As an organization, the Miami Dolphins regulate the amount of interaction their players have with the media and with fans. However, Twitter bypasses this control. Through Twitter, players can communicate directly with local reporters, rival players, and fans in Ohio with the click of a button.
How long will the Parcells Regime continue to live with this social infestation in their house before they begin to clean it up? They will likely try to reign it in soon before more players start jumping on the Twitter-wagon.
On a broader note, does an organization have the right or the power to control how their employees leverage these new social technologies?
Or is it their duty as leaders of their organization to keep things like Twitter from toppling their kingdom too?
Until we tweet again, this is
@Finstache signing off.
Poo-Tee-Weet?
In CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco’s annual selection of the Top 50 players in the NFL, he again neglected to place a single Miami Dolphins player on the list.
Well, at least he knows we will hate him for it as he placed a disclaimer in the opening paragraph of the article. Good looking out, Pete!
But, that’s how it works in the media. Create a controversial list of top whatever-the-****s, omit good players from teams with huge fan bases, and watch thousands of fools like me link to the article in outrage and receive oodles of free traffic. Prisco’s got the formula down!
In any case, some Dolphins did make it as “runner-ups.” Joey Porter and Jake Long both fell just short of making the highly esteemed list.
So which Dolphins players are worthy of being considered a Top 50 player in the NFL in 2009?
Candidates
Chad Pennington
Chad Pennington might just have the biggest brain of any QB in the NFL.
Unfortunately, he might also have the smallest arm. No, it’s not like he has a gimpy, raptor-like, deformed arm. It’s just that he doesn’t have that arm strength that allows guys like Manning and Brady to sling the ball for 50 yards on a rope with consistency. In any case, his mental prowess and immense leadership skills helped elevate the play of the entire Miami Dolphins offense in ’08, and figures to do the same in ’09.
Ronnie Brown
Did you hear? He once scored five touchdowns in a single game! And this wasn’t at Polk High either (sorry Al Bundy).
He did it against the “dynasty” New England Patriots. Ronnie Brown sprung the Wildcat on them and mauled them into submission in Week Three of the 2008 season. His unique skill set made the Wildcat a smashing success, but many people seem to forget his stellar performances prior to 2008.
In 2007, while the Dolphins were making their epic run at infamy, Ronnie Brown was tearing up the league, on way to an assured Pro Bowl berth, when unfortunately he ended up tearing up his knee instead. Now a year removed from ACL surgery, Ronnie should once again dominate the AFC East and the NFL in 2009.
Joey Porter
In 2008, Joey Porter finally lived up to his monstrous contract by posting some monstrous stats and contributing to some key victories along the way. Joey was back in a system that suited his style of play, and it showed. Porter finished the season with 47 tackles, four forced fumbles, and 17.5 sacks. Some of those sacks, such as the one against San Fransisco in the waning moments of the game, helped seal the victory.
His fiery attitude and leadership style also added a bit of nastiness and fierceness to the defense that was sorely lacking in previous years.
Porter looks to build upon his stellar 2008 performance and once again harass opposing QBs. Along with Jason Taylor, Porter looks to show that the poor performance by the sackmaster duo in 2007 was a fluke brought about by inept coaching. In 2009, they hope to finally fulfill the dreams and visions that many Dolfans had of J-Peezy and JT ravaging QBs across the league.
Jake Long
“The Pillar of Defense,” as I like to refer to him after Jeff Ireland’s pre-draft freudian slip, was a critical element in the success of the Dolphins’ 2008 offense. Jake Long might as well have been a real pillar entrenched in the ground because opposing defenders rarely were able to garner enough leverage to move him.
He may have let up a sack or two, but I don’t recall any. His hard work as Chad Pennington’s personal bodyguard paid off in the form of a Pro Bowl selection in his first year of service. Given the amount of hard work Jake puts into learning his craft and honing his statuesque body, I don’t see Jake’s Pro Bowl level of play dropping any time soon.
Will 2009 bring any new Dolphins into the realm of the Top 50? What are your thoughts, Dolfans?
It’s June 9 and the sun is beginning to set over Champaign, Illinois. The faint sounds of birds chirping in the distance, leaves rustling in the brisk Midwestern breeze, and the hypnotizing “whoosh” of far-off traffic cascade through the streets on this beautiful early summer’s night. All’s well in Champaign.
Suddenly, an insidious reverberation pierces the eardrums of nearby pedestrians.
Weee-O-Weee-O-Weee Wee-O-Weee-O-Weee Wee-O-Weee-O-Weee-O-Weee
Onlookers fall to their knees in despair. A great thunderous tremble accompanies the shrieking sound. A tornado? An Earthquake? A herd of raging rhinos? In Champaign? Couldn’t possibly be…
Weee-O-Weee-O-Weee Wee-O-Weee-O-Weee Wee-O-Weee-O-Weee-O-Weee
Passers-by search frantically for the source of the horrific sound. Over the horizon, the sum of all their fears is realized. An SUV with 20 inch rims comes into focus.
The cacophony being emitted from the monstrous vehicle sets off nearby car alarms and shatters windshields and tympanic membranes. Lil Wayne continues his musical onslaught upon the innocent bystanders.
Weee-O-Weee-O-Weee (Yea)
And I know she the law, and she know I’m the boss
And she know I can hide a-bove the law
And she know I’m raw, she know it from the street
And all she want me to do is **** the police
Talkin’ bout…
Perched behind the wheel—flat-brimmed hat slightly off-kilter—sits Vontae Davis, former superstar of the Fighting Illini and promising young rookie of the Miami Dolphins.
Pedestrians look on in horror as Vontae unleashes the full power of his subwoofers upon their feeble ears. The pounding bass causes bystanders to shake violently in rhythm—as if shaken by some giant, invisible maraca player. A small dog does back flips involuntarily.
Vontae looks on, unabashed, bouncing his head up and down to the stylings of Mr. Wayne.
Another sound enters the spectrum of sonorous insanity. It is barely audible through the super-sonic wall of sound surrounding the SUV, but this sound is accompanied by flashing lights. Victims stand dazed, wondering to themselves if they had unwittingly ingested hallucinogens and are, in fact, standing on a dance floor.
Weee-O-Weee-O-Weee Wee-O-Weee-O-Weee Wee-O-Weee-O-Weee-O-Weee
The sounds, mercifully, come to an end. Salvation had arrived and it was clad in blue.
After several minutes of Vontae Davis trying to justify his reprehensible behavior to one of Champaign’s finest, justice is finally served. Vontae Davis is arrested for driving without a valid license and unnecessary vehicular noise.
Simultaneously, 1,262 miles away, Vontae Davis is in the locker room of the Dolphins’ Training Facility in Davie, Florida preparing to head home after a long day of running drills during OTAs.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to enter the Twilight Zone.
There can be only one conclusion; Vontae Davis has managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible. He has broken the barriers of time and space.
Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to figuring out how Davis managed to pull off something of this magnitude.
It may never be given any satisfactory answer. Scientists will surely examine this case with great curiosity, but they will fail to find any suitable conclusion as to how Vontae Davis managed to be in two places at once. This figures to remain an enduring mystery that will continue to baffle even the most brilliant of minds for years to come.
Even though I cannot hope to conjure up the amount of mental power necessary to tackle this problem satisfactorily, I will put forth my best theories nonetheless.
Theory No. 1: VONTAE DAVIS IS A MUTANT
Vontae is naturally gifted, that much is evident. However, he could be hiding the true extent of his natural gifts. There have long been rumors of men born with incredible powers.
Through the years, some have even been captured and exploited for monetary gain by circuses and reality tv shows. The street magician known as David Blaine is rumored to be one such case.
This being the case, it is reasonable to assume that Vontae only uses a portion of his powers on the field as to not draw attention to himself, lest he be captured and studied in some lab by prodding scientists wishing to unlock the genetic code behind his powers.
Even using but a percentage of his powers, he has been able to outperform even the most talented of athletes. If he is a mutant, he may have been born with a power which gives him the ability to travel at incredible rates of speed or teleport great distances.
Such powers would give him more than enough time to travel from South Florida to Illinois and back in a span of a few hours. However, this would not explain how the Illinois Police Department had another Vontae Davis in custody at the same time that he was in Florida.
My theory: Using his super-speed or teleportation powers, he managed to decrease his mass and slip through the bars of his jail cell, print a life-sized cardboard cut-out of himself at a local Kinkos, and place the cut-out back in his jail cell and escape to Florida undetected.
If Vontae is indeed a super-powered mutant, the Miami Dolphins got a steal with the 25th pick in the 2009 NFL Draft.
Theory No. 2: VONTAE DAVIS IS REALLY, REALLY SMART AND TURNED HIS SUV INTO A TIME MACHINE
GREAT SCOTT! Vontae may have done it. He may have successfully invented the first vehicle capable of traveling through space-time. Kudos to the University of Illinois Physics Department. That “Intro to Physics” class looks like it paid off… BIG TIME!
How did Vontae do it? It could be in the sub-woofers… Perhaps the sub-woofers emit a frequency so powerful that it creates a wormhole, thus allowing Vontae to drive his SUV through two points in the space-time continuum, coming out on the other end at a different place and time.
Perhaps, upon heading home from workouts in Davie, Vontae decided to cruise down A1A to unwind a little. However, upon reaching South Beach, he was confronted by a massive traffic jam. Vontae, undaunted, decided to do some cruising at his old stomping grounds, cranked up the juice, and off he went to Champaign.
Perhaps, this was actually a Vontae Davis from an alternate dimension! That would explain the two Vontaes. The Vontae Davis in the jail cell in Illinois was actually a time-traveling Vontae from an alternate universe.
It has been postulated by physicists that there may be an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of possibilities existing parallel to each other.
Perhaps, in one such alternate dimension, Vontae Davis being a superstar physicist at the University of Illinois instead of a superstar defensive back, modified his SUV to travel through time and ended up in Champaign on another plane of existence.
Unfortunately for Bizarro Vontae, it appears that time-travel is excessively noisy, and thus, against the law in our universe.
Theory No. 3: VONTAE DAVIS IS DIVINE
NFL scouts and amateur NFL draft analysts have long noted that Vontae Davis has the physique of a god. However, none of them might have realized how truly on the mark their observations might have been until now.
Gods are not constrained by the limits of time and space. Perhaps, like the Greek God Zeus, Vontae is actually a divine entity who has come down from the heavens and taken human form in order to embarrass feeble mortals with his immense athletic prowess and copulate with copious amounts of women.
Being the supreme talent evaluator that he is, Bill Parcells might have somehow clued in on the divinity of Vontae Davis. After all, Vontae shares a similar ferocious style of play which was first demonstrated by the demigod Lawrence Taylor.
Perhaps, Bill Parcells himself is the incarnation of an all-powerful, all-knowing god. That would certainly explain his astounding ability to turn feces into gold.
The gods are amongst us, and they are here to judge us in the form of professional athletes. Think twice before you foolishly accuse another one of steroid use, lest you feel the wrath of the gods above.
If Vontae is a god, he likely split himself in two, creating a clone of himself to occupy the jail cell in Illinois, as he ventured back down south to participate at Dolphins camp the following morning.
While we could theorize for days as to how Vontae Davis could accomplish this miraculous feat, we, unlike Vontae, are slaves to time. Time only goes one way for us – quickly forward and unconcerned with our plight. As such, we must move on from this issue, even as we look back in wonder.
Although, thinking back on it now, some punk could have snagged Vontae Davis’ wallet a few months back and impersonated him when he got pulled over for a noise violation. The Illinois Police Department could have failed to notice the fraudulent act of identity theft and posted it on their website.
Following this blunder, several newspaper journalists in a wild craze to break some news before their competitors beat them to it might have reported that the real Vontae Davis of the Miami Dolphins was arrested without doing their due diligence.
Nah… That’s just too unbelievable…
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