Say this for Rich Rodriguez, the previous and now new head football coach at West Virginia. He did what American Government threatened to do but couldn’t. Rodriguez, who is just starting his second stint in Morgantown after a series of highs and lows as a college coach, announced that he’s banning his players from dancing on TikTok. Taking over a program that hasn’t won a conference championship since 2011 and has lagged behind major programs in the football arms race, Rodriguez – also known as Rich Rod – wants to change the perception of West Virginia football. And he thinks that players dancing in their tights on TikTok – that’s his words – isn’t the tough image he’s looking for. So even though Trump fancies himself hard on China with threats of TikTok bans and tariffs, Rodriguez actually has the guts to follow through.
To be fair, Rich Rod isn’t telling his players they can’t use TikTok at all. Just that they can’t dance on it. Then again, if you can’t post yourself dancing, what’s the point of TikTok. It’s like going to Friendly’s and not getting ice cream. But Rodriguez gets he can’t possibly keep a sideline of 18-22 year olds away from social media. He’s just trying to control the narrative around West Virginia football, which recently has focused on mediocrity. Coach did add that if twenty years from now, these same players what to sit in their pajamas on the couch eating Cheetos and watching TikTok – which sounds awesome by the way – they can do it. Or smoke Cannabis, or whatever. Just not when they’re trying to win football games for the Mountaineers.
Rodriguez is by no means the first college coach to try and ban social media in some form. Admittedly, most happened several years ago, including football coaches like Steve Spurrier and Chris Peterson banning players from using Twitter – which now feels like a reward. But since the turn of the decade, you’d be hard pressed to find a major college coach who even tempts the fate of censorship. In the pros, you’re lucking if athletes aren’t posting from bench. A lot of this shift in perspective around college athletes and social media comes in conjunction with the changing landscape of compensation. With athletes able to make in some cases millions off their personal brand, platforms like TikTok and Instagram aren’t just time kills. They’re a significant business tool.
Obviously, I’m certain Rodriguez isn’t trying to limit the earning potential of his future recruits. In fact, one of West Virginia’s biggest challenges will be finding the cash to compete with the Alamabas and Texases of the world. And especially when a star player can transfer at any time to someplace with more fiscal upside, coaches will do whatever they can to keep talent on their sidelines. And it’s worth acknowledging that Rich Rodriguez walks to his own beat, part of why things didn’t work out at Michigan when they originally hired him away from West Virginia the first time 17 years ago. So perhaps his odd stance on TikTok dancing is just a byproduct of his general personal.
But Rodriguez did say one thing in his proclamation that made sense and also revealed the inherent challenge of being a big-time college coach this day and age. He mentioned discussions with his players about society emphasizing the individual over the group – which he calls team. And that his dance ban is a way to help alter that focus, at least for his program and the athletes that are a part of it. Strangely, it feels like a fish swimming upstream even if it affirms pretty much every piece of advice we’ve ever heard about collective success, be it a company, a family, or, yes, a sports team. That success comes from selfless dedication to the whole, not by self-aggrandizement. You can argue about whether that’s a fair burden on college athletes with a limited shelf life or whether dancing on TikTok amounts to some form of team mutiny. But you have to at least respect the fact that Rodriguez has conviction about what it takes to win together. And yes, I’m completely ignoring the fact that he will get paid millions annually and the hypocricy that might infer.
Rodriguez closed his remarks by saying that he hopes they can focus on winning football games and not worry about winning TikTok. If he can, he’s way ahead of the American government.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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