What One Screwball Can Do

A few weeks ago I asked tUMD’s athletic department to make a change to the Twitter account for the men’s hockey program.

There are people who thought I was crazy.

I’ll show them what one screwball can do!

The powers that be in the UMD Athletic Department didn’t think I was so crazy. Behold:

The new men’s hockey Twitter account

The existing women’s hockey Twitter account

The hockey Twitter account, which will highlight both programs

After I didn’t receive an answer from tUMD on Twitter, I decided to email the athletic director and the men’s hockey SID. I also connected with the UMD Commission for Women, who wrote an official letter to the athletic director on the matter, which was much more eloquent than mine.

My email was forwarded to the director of marketing, who told me they were looking into the matter, and then a week or two later, he responded with this explanation.

“We learned the @UMDHockey account was the first account created for any of our programs and was designed to cover UMD Hockey in general (Men and Women) because our Women’s team at the time chose not to be active on social media. Now that both are active as well as all our teams we felt it was the right time for the change.”

Hey, it makes sense to me. And if Maryland’s club hockey team hadn’t decided to cybersquat on the @umdmhockey account, we could have had parallel structure for our team Twitter handles.

I really appreciate the response from the athletic department. I mean, the fix was SO easy, a cave man could have done it, so there wasn’t any reason not to, but I am sure they could have dismissed me. Perhaps without the Commission for Women’s letter of concern, they would have, so I appreciate their willingness to step in and give their opinion on the matter.

In the grand scheme of things, this change may seem insignificant. A lot of people asked me why I chose to champion this issue, because as you know, there are starving people and wars and meth and stuff. People are not allowed to ask for small things to be changed, because big things are going on, I guess. I chose this issue because it was small, and because it was something I had the power to address. Small changes add up over time. (I also expect anyone who made snide remarks about my mini-crusade on the grounds that there are bigger problems in the world to be a big donor to this fall’s From Top Shelf To Food Shelf campaign.)

Thanks for doing the right thing, tUMD Athletics.

Your move, Gophers.