Editorial:

Twitter incident should serve as lesson to student leaders

Published Nov. 10, 2009

Saturday's disappointing loss left a lot of Tiger fans looking for a way to vent their frustrations. But one fan took his complaints directly to the team, sparking an ordeal between him and MU players. Unfortunately, it all played out in the public eye, on Twitter.

After the MU loss to Baylor on Saturday afternoon, former MU football walk-on Austin Huff tweeted directly at Blaine Gabbert, saying "@BlaineGabbert is the worst leader I have ever seen at quarterback. Don't ever get up slow and limp off our field again." Huff then claimed Gabbert responded with a direct message calling him an idiot, albeit a bit more colorfully.

Huff proceeded to make the contents of the message public on his Twitter and posted another tweet at Gabbert. At that point, teammate Derrick Washington came to Gabbert's defense, sparking a more civil discussion.

Huff later apologized to Gabbert on his Twitter.

Although Huff was out of line, not to mention misguided — Gabbert set a personal record for passing yards in Saturday's game — student athletes and other student leaders need to remember what they say can be blown out of proportion, as it was in this case.

Regardless of whether Gabbert sent the direct message to Huff, student athletes should stay above the fray and let attacks like Huff’s roll off their backs. It's something athletes should get used to. Why dignify critics with a response, much less let them know that they're getting to you?

Without a response from Gabbert, Huff would have been just one of the many fans unfairly pinning their disappointments on MU's sophomore quarterback Saturday.

This does not only apply to Gabbert. Other student athletes, student government leaders and prominent students across campus should learn from this incident.

Being a prominent college student at a Big 12 school is vastly different from being in high school. Blogs and the Associated Press can pick up statements made on a public forum such as Twitter and, as seen in this situation, even a direct private message isn't really private.

Although we realize Gabbert tried to keep it between Huff and himself, he also should have figured out a message like that might not stay in confidence.

There will always be fans who will voice their disappointment, and social networking sites, such as Twitter, give them the opportunity to take it directly to the players. Sometimes in these cases, the best response is no response at all.