UMass Hoops Tweets?
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MassModestMouse
- Senior
- Posts: 805
- Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2009 12:33 pm
- Location: Washington, DC
Nothing better than walls of text arguing over things that are 140 characters or less.
Blindspots probably over-reacted by posting his DMs here, but the rest of you deciding that that one action was enough to call into question his entire character as a human being is laughable at best.
I enjoy your blog and especially your twitter account. This really isn't that big of a deal either way. Keep up the good work.
Blindspots probably over-reacted by posting his DMs here, but the rest of you deciding that that one action was enough to call into question his entire character as a human being is laughable at best.
I enjoy your blog and especially your twitter account. This really isn't that big of a deal either way. Keep up the good work.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
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MullinsManiac
- Senior
- Posts: 1514
- Joined: Wed Apr 02, 2003 1:01 am
- Location: Trumbull, CT
First Freddie, now this. Ugh.
DK seems rather passive-aggressive in his dealings with players overall, and specifically regarding social media. I understand he has a tough balancing act regarding player discipline, but now at least two players under his watch have put their feet in their mouths on the Internet.
I know this isn't as bad as the misdeeds of many other college athletes, but it's time for the coach to stop being a friend and start being a coach.
DK seems rather passive-aggressive in his dealings with players overall, and specifically regarding social media. I understand he has a tough balancing act regarding player discipline, but now at least two players under his watch have put their feet in their mouths on the Internet.
I know this isn't as bad as the misdeeds of many other college athletes, but it's time for the coach to stop being a friend and start being a coach.
It's not one action. Guy's a clown.MassModestMouse wrote:Nothing better than walls of text arguing over things that are 140 characters or less.
Blindspots probably over-reacted by posting his DMs here, but the rest of you deciding that that one action was enough to call into question his entire character as a human being is laughable at best.
I enjoy your blog and especially your twitter account. This really isn't that big of a deal either way. Keep up the good work.
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Blindspots
- Sophomore
- Posts: 171
- Joined: Sat Mar 06, 2010 11:34 pm
- Location: Rick Nashua
- Contact:
I can understand someone not getting the shtick, but I'm kinda confused why you hate me so much. Are you a marcou brother i was unaware of?Chris20 wrote:It's not one action. Guy's a clown.MassModestMouse wrote:Nothing better than walls of text arguing over things that are 140 characters or less.
Blindspots probably over-reacted by posting his DMs here, but the rest of you deciding that that one action was enough to call into question his entire character as a human being is laughable at best.
I enjoy your blog and especially your twitter account. This really isn't that big of a deal either way. Keep up the good work.
#bikemarcou
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InnervisionsUMASS
- Hall of Fame
- Posts: 17729
- Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 1:32 am
- Location: Milford, MA
- Contact:
MullinsManiac wrote:First Freddie, now this. Ugh.
DK seems rather passive-aggressive in his dealings with players overall, and specifically regarding social media. I understand he has a tough balancing act regarding player discipline, but now at least two players under his watch have put their feet in their mouths on the Internet.
I know this isn't as bad as the misdeeds of many other college athletes, but it's time for the coach to stop being a friend and start being a coach.
Because one person overreacted? Yeah, seems reasonable to me.
Stop waiting for UMass to do something big and help UMass do something big. - Shades
Hey Modest Mouse...I wasn't questioning the dude's "entire character as a human being." I was merely pointing out he was being a hypocrite and I don't particularly care for hypocrites. He could be a swell guy who raises money for orphanages and runs a telethon for underprivileged camels in the Sierra Leone, I don't know.
But yes, there is nothing better than arguing about a tweet. We all know that wasn't the dude's intention but that's what happened.
But yes, there is nothing better than arguing about a tweet. We all know that wasn't the dude's intention but that's what happened.
"I wrote a column and it went national"
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UMassZappa
- Freshman
- Posts: 45
- Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 2:16 pm
- Location: Home
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Marshmont_63
- Senior
- Posts: 1061
- Joined: Sat Feb 22, 2014 3:56 pm
- Location: Chestnut Hill
Any type of homophobia is unacceptable. Dyson has to be held acceptable for his actions by the university. I don't think Dyson is homophobic and by no means do I think he is a bad person for retweeting this. However, if he had retweeted something regarding a reference to the Nazi's I bet people would have reacted differently. Homophobia is a serious problem in our world and more than 4,000 people have been executed in Iran alone for being gay. I'm sure Dyson is a good kid and I wish him the best in the future. Btw, let's not play the blame game. Even if Blindspots has said some questionable things in the past it doesn't mean he is wrong here. The word 'Faggot' is on course to be the next 'n-word'. It is demeaning and insinuates that gay people are somehow below straight people. I wish people could be more sensitive to words that isolate a certain group of people and serve only the purpose of berating them. Kellogg just needs to remind Dyson that he is a representative of the university. That is all.
“When people come to our building we want them to feel the house of P.A.I.N.” -- Chaz Williams
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mlaconte459
- Hall of Fame
- Posts: 2855
- Joined: Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:24 pm
They are just looking for trouble.. Their accounts have called out chris20 and nju by their umass message board usernames on twitter as well.. It's pretty embarrassing.. Bring twitter drama to the board and brings board drama to twitter.. If that's not just plain weird then I don't know what is
GO... GO U... GO UMASSS..... GO UMASSS
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Marty Peretz
- Hall of Fame
- Posts: 4082
- Joined: Fri Dec 16, 2005 3:13 am
This whole incident, contrary to what some might say, IS significant. Hear me out on this one for a moment...
Dyson has been sold to us as a high character guy and not just in a bullshit way either. I'd heard he was pre-med or considering that track. He tweets about his labs. He tweets nice things about his mom. His mother and father seem like lovely people (they tweet too--including recently to the UMass hoops twitter handle itself). Dyson does not, in other words, fit the narrative of a kid who came up in a terrible environment, who didn't give a shit about school and who only came here to play ball and leave. Look, maybe it's wrong of me to say, but based on everything we've heard/read/seen about him, he is one of the last kids on the team who I expected this sort of bullshit from. And I'm talking more about his response than his original tweet. The original tweet was totally unnecessary and homophobic, but he easily could have explained it away with a response saying something to the effect of "I didn't mean to offend. I'm sorry if you were offended. That wasn't my intention." Had he done that, I think 95 percent of people here would have let it go by the next day.
Instead, we got a rare insight into the kid's inner thought process. And it wasn't pretty.
Look, I'm under no illusions when it comes to the realities of how a lot of high level college athletes conduct themselves or how they view the world. I get it. There is deep rooted homophobia for many and for a kid from Memphis in particular, it's sadly not all that surprising that this kind of ignorance persists. It's clear that he's never given a second thought to dropping that word in a tweet, not realizing that, for a lot of people, that word is the equivalent of dropping the N word.
What troubles me is Dyson's response. A kid with more common sense would either not have responded or he'd have enough smarts to say "I'm not homophobic, I didn't mean to offend." Dyson didn't do that. He doubled down and looked way, way worse for doing so. He ended up looking quite homophobic, but he also ended up looking quite dumb for not having the foresight to recognize that not everyone else thinks the way he does. Look, if you want to harbor a primal discomfort when it comes to gay issues, by all means, go ahead. It's a free country. But if you're engaging with a fan who harbors a different worldview than you do, maybe at least attempt to respond to them with a modicum of respect/cogent thought before shooting off at the mouth and making yourself look like a damn fool.
I think this issue hits so close to home for so many of us because, as fans, we are inclined to cling to two largely unspoken notions. The first is that we cling to the notion that as die hard fans, it's never our place to call out player's behavior that would embarrass the team/program/school. The second notion is that as diehard fans, we frankly don't really want to know if/when our players are doing things that would embarrass us as a fan base. Life is hard enough as it is that ideally fans don't wanna have to spend their precious leisure time wrestling with the cold, harsh reality that the kids they invest copious amounts of time rooting for are flawed humans too. Flawed, often sophomoric 19 and 20 year-olds no less.
But the fact that acknowledging this reality is uncomfortable or makes us look bad doesn't mean it should just "be kept in house" as some here are suggesting. And for the record, I've kept COUNTLESS rumors and gossip off this board for just that reason, so I don't have much of a case when it comes to chiding others for being pissed about some of this stuff getting put out in the public. I'm being a hypocrite.
That said, Blindspots was in the right here.
Dyson's response was reflective of two potentially broader problems. The first is ignorance. The second is a lack of judgement. Regarding the ignorance issue: as I said earlier, making kids more tolerant is challenging and maybe he'll leave UMass as ignorant as when he got here no matter what sensitivity training bullshit he might ultimately be forced to sit through. That sucks, but it is what it is. A lot of people don't come around on the gay thing until they meet a gay person and realize they're positively no different than anyone else other than their sexual preference. Maybe he has to have that experience.
But on the second issue, the judgement issue, the program does have a responsibility to impart some basic wisdom on these guys when it comes to displaying some good judgement. Or they at least have to inform kids that, sure, they can say whatever they want, but those statements are going to induce reactions from fans, scouts, future employers, etc. They need to understand that there IS something to lose here. They also need to understand that the world exists outside of the bubble of their team and that because they're somewhat in the public eye, people will challenge their offhanded, causal statements.
Dyson and any other kid can say whatever they want. Shit, I was one of Freddie's biggest defenders on here. But they need to understand that, particularly when they say racist/homophobic/sexist things, people are going to take offense and that once approached with critical responses, they have the choice of either apologizing, explaining themselves in a rational manner or looking like a complete moron. Dyson chose the third option and this conversation is what resulted.
As for Blindspots/fightmass, a couple of you need to chill out. If Blindspots was in a calmer place right now, I suspect he'd say something to this effect: "Our twitter feed is a running stream of absurdist UMass sports humor. We say things that will come across as heinously offensive if you take a casual peak at our feed. We frequently cross the line in doing this, but we're self-aware enough to own this and if you are so sanctimonious that you want to nitpick with every offensive tweet, you've completely missed the point of what we're doing."
Comparing the responses of Dyson and the tweets of fightmass is comparing apples to oranges. Fightmass is very clearly an ironic exercise in pushing the envelope via twitter/their blog and they definitely cross the line sometimes. But they also don't shy away from criticism. To the contrary, they happily engage in completely ridiculous chirping sessions with their critics (just as they did with Dyson). Dyson--and his defenders on this board--seem to think that the very act of approaching/calling someone out on their offensiveness is a problem. In truth, if Dyson had sought to explain himself in an even semi-coherent manner, I probably would have liked the kid ten times more than I currently do. Shit, he could have come back with 6 lines of scripture on why gays are going to hell and I'd STILL respect him more than I do now. At least that would have been AN argument of some kind (albeit a dumb one but you get the point).
Dyson has been sold to us as a high character guy and not just in a bullshit way either. I'd heard he was pre-med or considering that track. He tweets about his labs. He tweets nice things about his mom. His mother and father seem like lovely people (they tweet too--including recently to the UMass hoops twitter handle itself). Dyson does not, in other words, fit the narrative of a kid who came up in a terrible environment, who didn't give a shit about school and who only came here to play ball and leave. Look, maybe it's wrong of me to say, but based on everything we've heard/read/seen about him, he is one of the last kids on the team who I expected this sort of bullshit from. And I'm talking more about his response than his original tweet. The original tweet was totally unnecessary and homophobic, but he easily could have explained it away with a response saying something to the effect of "I didn't mean to offend. I'm sorry if you were offended. That wasn't my intention." Had he done that, I think 95 percent of people here would have let it go by the next day.
Instead, we got a rare insight into the kid's inner thought process. And it wasn't pretty.
Look, I'm under no illusions when it comes to the realities of how a lot of high level college athletes conduct themselves or how they view the world. I get it. There is deep rooted homophobia for many and for a kid from Memphis in particular, it's sadly not all that surprising that this kind of ignorance persists. It's clear that he's never given a second thought to dropping that word in a tweet, not realizing that, for a lot of people, that word is the equivalent of dropping the N word.
What troubles me is Dyson's response. A kid with more common sense would either not have responded or he'd have enough smarts to say "I'm not homophobic, I didn't mean to offend." Dyson didn't do that. He doubled down and looked way, way worse for doing so. He ended up looking quite homophobic, but he also ended up looking quite dumb for not having the foresight to recognize that not everyone else thinks the way he does. Look, if you want to harbor a primal discomfort when it comes to gay issues, by all means, go ahead. It's a free country. But if you're engaging with a fan who harbors a different worldview than you do, maybe at least attempt to respond to them with a modicum of respect/cogent thought before shooting off at the mouth and making yourself look like a damn fool.
I think this issue hits so close to home for so many of us because, as fans, we are inclined to cling to two largely unspoken notions. The first is that we cling to the notion that as die hard fans, it's never our place to call out player's behavior that would embarrass the team/program/school. The second notion is that as diehard fans, we frankly don't really want to know if/when our players are doing things that would embarrass us as a fan base. Life is hard enough as it is that ideally fans don't wanna have to spend their precious leisure time wrestling with the cold, harsh reality that the kids they invest copious amounts of time rooting for are flawed humans too. Flawed, often sophomoric 19 and 20 year-olds no less.
But the fact that acknowledging this reality is uncomfortable or makes us look bad doesn't mean it should just "be kept in house" as some here are suggesting. And for the record, I've kept COUNTLESS rumors and gossip off this board for just that reason, so I don't have much of a case when it comes to chiding others for being pissed about some of this stuff getting put out in the public. I'm being a hypocrite.
That said, Blindspots was in the right here.
Dyson's response was reflective of two potentially broader problems. The first is ignorance. The second is a lack of judgement. Regarding the ignorance issue: as I said earlier, making kids more tolerant is challenging and maybe he'll leave UMass as ignorant as when he got here no matter what sensitivity training bullshit he might ultimately be forced to sit through. That sucks, but it is what it is. A lot of people don't come around on the gay thing until they meet a gay person and realize they're positively no different than anyone else other than their sexual preference. Maybe he has to have that experience.
But on the second issue, the judgement issue, the program does have a responsibility to impart some basic wisdom on these guys when it comes to displaying some good judgement. Or they at least have to inform kids that, sure, they can say whatever they want, but those statements are going to induce reactions from fans, scouts, future employers, etc. They need to understand that there IS something to lose here. They also need to understand that the world exists outside of the bubble of their team and that because they're somewhat in the public eye, people will challenge their offhanded, causal statements.
Dyson and any other kid can say whatever they want. Shit, I was one of Freddie's biggest defenders on here. But they need to understand that, particularly when they say racist/homophobic/sexist things, people are going to take offense and that once approached with critical responses, they have the choice of either apologizing, explaining themselves in a rational manner or looking like a complete moron. Dyson chose the third option and this conversation is what resulted.
As for Blindspots/fightmass, a couple of you need to chill out. If Blindspots was in a calmer place right now, I suspect he'd say something to this effect: "Our twitter feed is a running stream of absurdist UMass sports humor. We say things that will come across as heinously offensive if you take a casual peak at our feed. We frequently cross the line in doing this, but we're self-aware enough to own this and if you are so sanctimonious that you want to nitpick with every offensive tweet, you've completely missed the point of what we're doing."
Comparing the responses of Dyson and the tweets of fightmass is comparing apples to oranges. Fightmass is very clearly an ironic exercise in pushing the envelope via twitter/their blog and they definitely cross the line sometimes. But they also don't shy away from criticism. To the contrary, they happily engage in completely ridiculous chirping sessions with their critics (just as they did with Dyson). Dyson--and his defenders on this board--seem to think that the very act of approaching/calling someone out on their offensiveness is a problem. In truth, if Dyson had sought to explain himself in an even semi-coherent manner, I probably would have liked the kid ten times more than I currently do. Shit, he could have come back with 6 lines of scripture on why gays are going to hell and I'd STILL respect him more than I do now. At least that would have been AN argument of some kind (albeit a dumb one but you get the point).
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Refuse2Lose83
- Hall of Fame
- Posts: 4823
- Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2008 10:08 pm
- Location: Western Mass
