Cardale Jones was suspended by coach Urban Meyer for Ohio State’s game against Nebraska for his now infamous tweet: “Why should we have to go to class if we came here to play FOOTBALL, we ain’t come to play SCHOOL classes are POINTLESS”.

Jones a third-string, true freshman quarterback apparently got the urge to tweet his frustrations for the world to see. Within minutes after the tweet at least 30 news organizations had already picked it up and reposted the tweet on their websites along with their commentary. Within an hour the Ohio State Athletic Dept shut down Jones’ Twitter account. It was all a bit too late, you can’t technically erase a tweet once it’s sent. It’s out for the world to see so the sender loses all control over those 140 characters.

I’ll never understand why teens feel so compelled to share everything with everybody. I guess it’s a by-product of their generation. These kids have been raised on Facebook and now we expect them to handle Twitter which is a much more viral form of social media.

Jones didn’t trade a bowl ring for a few tattoos, he didn’t drive around a car supplied by a booster’s dealership, he didn’t even throw his coach under the bus in a Sports Illustrated article like some of his recent Ohio State football alums. What he did might even be worse. Jones said what most students, school administrators, fans and media wanted to hear. That school wasn’t important but football is. That is a lighting rod perfectly crafted to shine negative media spotlight on the university.

The thing that makes me scratch my head about this is that if he would have tweeted “I luv school, I can’t believe they gave me a fball scholarship #screwfootball #lawschoolonyourdime” it would have been a much bigger outrage. All fans want is a great team. They could care less about the team’s GPA. If Jones was thrust into game action because of injuries and had a 300 yard /4 TD afternoon in the Horseshoe all of this would be a mute point. If he had a 3.9 gpa in Engineering but never started in 4 years he would be labeled a “bust” or “loser”.

Don’t take what this articles true point is the wrong way. It was definitely a foolish expression from a 19 year old true freshman. It happens to be almost the same exact expression I hear from my work colleagues every Monday morning in the office as it pertains to their jobs. It’s simply not ok to bash academics as a student athlete. It doesn’t show much class, integrity or forward thinking. But how many 19 year olds do?

The way to prosperity for 99.9% of the population is through education. So knocking education – is mocking the 99% and that will surely come back to bite him. Some things are better off not being said especially on Twitter!

The real problem is that most student athletes have no understanding on how social media “really” works and the repercussions if it’s done wrong. It can cost coaches and administrators their jobs, athletes their scholarships or even worse.

If Cardale had tweeted something positive this would not be a story — so take note of that. When someone tweets it follows them forever. It’s a digital footprint. A written record that any employer will be able to pull up 5-10 years from now. We can all google and see what a knucklehead Cardale Jones was on Oct 5th, 2012. That stains his reputation. Truly his tweet has nothing to do with him being ungrateful for his opportunity. He worked very hard for this. He wasn’t born a top 30 QB in the country, he made himself into a top QB. He had to qualify on same SAT’s as other students. So he most definitely had a frustrating moment and he simply tweeted his thoughts. It’s a shame that it plays out on SportsCenter, but ultimately he did it to himself and hopefully many more will learn from it.

This just goes to show the power these young athletes don’t realize they have with their social comments. Media outlets, opposing fans, athletes, and haters are following and just waiting for players to say something that they can turn into a headline. Be careful or just don’t tweet at all.