Surprise, surprise—the NCAA isn’t up for having any fun.
The straight-faced governing arm of college athletics announced Monday that the University of Akron men’s basketball team will not be allowed to post the team’s Twitter handle on the back of players’ jerseys when the team squares off against the University of Ohio Feb. 2 in a contest being billed as Social Media Night.
The team had put in the request to replace all its players’ last names with @ZipsMBB, but that was quickly shot down. According to NCAA rules, a team is only allowed to have the name of a player, institution, or mascot on the back of its jersey. Twitter handles are inexcusable, even in the rough and rugged world of the Mid-American Conference.
In a Twitlonger message posted Monday evening, Dan Satter, Akron’s associate athletic director for external relations, said that the @ZipsMBB handle will appear on the team’s shooting shirts before the game. “And we have planned plenty of other social media activities and promotions,” he added.
Here’s hoping somebody makes a YouTube video.
Photo via University of Akron
