The Information Age

Technology can be a curse for some, but for this Tar Heel fan, it's pretty sweet right now. Facebook, one of the major social networking sights is very popular and especially popular with college students, at least in my experience. It turns out that even Tar Heels use Facebook and some of them, quite a bit. I am "friends" with some of the North Carolina players and I use the term friend loosely, because there is no way that some of these players would be friends with me. Some of my Tar Heel friends include: Surry Wood, JB Tanner Dewey Burke, Quentin Thomas, Tyler Zeller, Marc Campbell, John Henson, Dexter Strickland, and Leslie McDonald. I used to be friends with Danny Green, but he has since figured he was better off without me as his friend. Wes Miller was also one of my buddies, but has since deleted his account. I've sent messages to Marcus Ginyard commending him for his leadership, but he still has not accepted my friend request. Tyler Hansbrough, Deon Thompson, and Alex Stepheson also must not realize who I am, but Cam Sexton has (Carolina QB - gotta give the football team a shoutout once in awhile).

Anyway, I share all this information because this year's current freshman, Henson, Strickland, and McDonald all update their Facebook status quite a bit. Some of it is pretty random, saying their going to movies or their in class, but sometimes they say they are working out and then they curse Jonas for working them too hard in the weight room. But here is Dexter Strickland's last update:

"Leadership is the ability to persuade others to do what you want them to do because they want to do it...i hope to lead my team to another championship this year as a freshmen...sounds hard but its possible!....UNC i love u!..."

That sounds pretty encouraging to me, coming from a freshman, but one could argue that he hasn't even played a game, which he hasn't yet. But I don't think you can argue that the desire isn't there.

Another social network that is quite popular is Twitter. I joined Twitter maybe 2 months ago and don't spend a lot of time there, but you can follow people and don't really have to worry about them rejected you as their friend. There are a lot of current and former Tar Heels on Twitter. I think Rashad McCants lives on Twitter; Sean May also updates a lot about his workouts in the Smith Center. Marcus Ginyard updates when there is pickup games in the Smith Center, when he is in the ice tub, and when he's getting shots in. Ed Davis and John Henson are also on Twitter, but do not update as frequently. Will Graves and Mike Copeland are also common Twitters and even Roy Williams and Tyler Hansbrough are on Twitter.

Technology has some cons, I would be the first to tell you that, but I think this is pretty cool because it brings me closer to the players and to Tar Heel Basketball.