Recruits say the dumbest things: Yuri Wright’s prospects derailed by vulgar tweets
Yes, it's that time of year again: Welcome to our annual reminder to young athletes that social media is… well, social. Which means what you write there is public. Which means anyone can read it. Which means, now that you're a notable figure in the marginal but obsessive subculture of college football recruiting, that a lot of people who are not your friends are going to read it.
Some of those people will be potential coaches and other authority figures. Which means, as blue-chip cornerback prospect Yuri Wright found out this week, that you are going to have to deal with the consequences:
Don Bosco Prep [in Ramsey, N.J.] expelled the highly recruited football star Yuri Wright on Wednesday for comments made on his Twitter feed, according to the head football coach, Greg Toal.
Wright, a defensive back from Spring Valley, N.Y., has since deleted his Twitter account.
"He's a good kid, and I think he has a bright college future, and I wish him the best of luck," said Toal. "There is no question Don Bosco had to do what it had to do."
The comments were of a graphic sexual nature.
"Graphic sexual nature" is putting it mildly: You can read more than a dozen of Wright's tweets here, dating back to last summer, including a dispatch from (apparently) a sex-ed class in which students were learning about the female "organism," a lecture Wright seems to think he's qualified to deliver from personal experience. You have been warned.
As high school seniors go, Wright is kind of a big deal, a solid four-star prospect from the No. 1 high school team in the nation who comes in at 85th on Rivals' list of the top 100 recruits in the 2012 class. (He had been ranked higher before dropping slightly in the latest re-ranking, which took into account his performance at the Army All-American Bowl earlier this month.) But the lack of a crucial brain-to-keyboard filter has already cost him a scholarship offer from Michigan, may cost him another from Notre Dame and could wreak havoc on his academic standing now that he's been kicked out of school. The other finalists for his services — Georgia, Colorado and Rutgers — still have a decision to make.
Wright hasn't been charged with any crime, and it's entirely possible he's a normal, decent kid who just learned a valuable lesson about public relations. Now, he just has to hope there's a big-time school still willing to take the chance to find out.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
