Yuri Wright commits to CU after Twitter-versy

Yesterday, we learned how Twitter, when used properly, can make even politicians look cool. Today, we have a lesson in how Twitter—when used carelessly and with little thought to the fact that one’s tweets can be read by practically anyone with an Internet connection—can make you look like an appalling moron. And jeopardize your college career to boot.

The latest case study is Yuri Wright, a high school football phenom from New Jersey who was courted by Michigan, Rutgers, Notre Dame and CU. Michigan, which the Daily Camera reports was Wright’s dream school, offered him a scholarship.

But then he was expelled from high school last week for posting an ongoing stream of thuggish and misogynistic tweets. The Camera reports that Wright ignored months of warnings from school officials to clean up his Twitter feed (which was protected, but he’d approved more than 1,600 followers). It was only after he was kicked out of school—and saw his Michigan scholarship offer withdrawn over concerns about his character—that he closed his account.

Wright committed to CU on Tuesday and told ESPN that he was “very grateful” that coach Jon Embree was still willing to have him in a Buffs uniform.

Not many of Wright’s tweets are fit for publication (but ChatSports.com, a sports news website, managed to snatch some before the account vanished and posted samples here), but it can be diplomatically said that he enjoys the company of women and, in one post, is intrigued by whether certain sexual reactions in women amount to “organisms.” His posts are littered with the N-word and numerous explicit references to sexual acts and anatomy. In one of the few tweets lacking in profanity or strong language, he wrote about how his “pops” drove by “some jewish lady” and splashed her with water.

It’s one thing to post a boneheaded tweet once in awhile (one of the forgiving things about the medium is that Twitter-memory can be short), but some of the tweets posted by ChatSports are dated in July.

Sports Illustrated reasonably points out that locker room vulgarity is nothing new with male athletes. The difference is that in the past it was confined to the locker room.

Wright “made a mistake common among the members of his generation,” wrote columnist Andy Staples. “He thought something 1,600 people could read was private.”

The short discussion on the #yuriwright Twitter thread displays a variety of opinions, ranging from “Glad my boy #YuriWright found a college that doesn’t care if you’re illiterate” and “Pleasantly surprised that schools still have standards” to “Leave #yuriwright alone! Our twitters/ facebooks are our personal. School is School our home life is our home life. Like wtf.”

For his part, Wright told ESPN that he’s sworn off Twitter and learned his lesson.

“I made a huge mistake,” he told writer Greg Biggins. “I definitely learned a valuable lesson, and I promise nothing like that will ever happen again.”