With the coronavirus pandemic forcing people to social distance, San Jose State’s football program has turned to Twitter to recruit players for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 seasons.
The hashtag “#thi2is2parta” was created by Cameron Radford, director of football digital communications, to attract players to the team without actually meeting them in person.
“In the past few years, the creative side of college football has expanded exponentially,” Radford said over Zoom. “It’s become more and more important to use Twitter and use it with good creative assets whether that’s with videos, photos or graphics.”
When coming up with the hashtag campaign, Radford thought of the line “This is Sparta” from the 2006 film “300” and incorporated the 22 of the 2022 recruitment year into the iconic line.
When high school prospects find the hashtag, they can use it to connect with SJSU coaches through their Twitter accounts and directly message their highlight reels to those coaches.
SJSU’s football section on the Athletics website is also loaded with videos, news articles and bright graphics that give new recruits a feel for the program.
Normally, coaches would meet with players in-person to get to know the high school prospects by talking with their previous coaches and meeting their family members.
However, assistant coach Alonzo Carter said it has been tough trying to establish relationships and true connections with students virtually, but acknowledged how social media is now crucial for recruitment.
“There’s just so many things we use our social media platform for to get our message out and here in the heart of Silicon Valley, who better to represent that than San Jose State,” Carter said over Zoom.
Carter gave all the credit to Radford for using social media creatively to recruit potential student-athletes during the pandemic to play at SJSU.
As of now, the original “#thi2is2parta” post has received over 50 replies from prospects sending in their career statistics in hopes of catching the eyes of the coaching staff.
Zander Milton, junior strong safety at Kenner Discovery Health Sciences Academy in Kenner, Louisiana, said he sees himself attending SJSU in the future after using the university’s social media campaign to connect with coaches.
“I feel that is definitely a place I can play and make the most of my college experience,” Milton said in an email. “They have a good coaching staff and solid team so I know that they’ll not only prepare me for four years of my life but also [the next] 40 years.”
Ryan Damitio, junior and long snapper at Timberline High School in Lacey, Washington, also said he is interested in playing for SJSU’s football team because he likes the university’s academics and the team’s family approach.
“There is something I love about SJSU more than these other schools,” Damitio said in an email. “[It’s] everything from attractions and academics to how they treat their players.”
Damitio said he turned to Twitter to connect with potential football programs because he felt he could post a video that could showcase his gameplay beyond his target audience of college football coaches.
Coach Carter said he has been surprised by the amount of national attention the football program has received.
He said he even got an email from a player from Texas telling him that he would be a perfect fit for the football team.
“We don’t even recruit Texas like that,” Carter said over Zoom. “They see what we’re doing and the power of social media is what’s making the players feel connected, seeing themselves not only being football players but student-athletes at our university.”
