quote:It was by no means a an informative or insightful message, but it's what hundreds have signed up for: "Its a great day to be a bulldog." That, grammatical errors and all, is what Mississippi State football coach Dan Mullen sent out to his mass of Twitter followers on Tuesday. He's just one of several college coaches who are using the micro-blogging and social networking phenomenon, which allows anyone with an account - it's free at Twitter.com - to receive messages, or "Tweets," of 140 or fewer characters. Mullen's Twitter user name is @CoachDanMullen. Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt (@HoustonNuttOM) is also a Tweeter - or Twitterer, if you prefer - and like Mullen keeps fans posted on where he is and what he's doing. On Tuesday, for instance, Nutt reported, "going to play some pickup ball with Danny and then off to Sonic for some ice cream!!!" Danny is Nutt's brother and a Rebels assistant coach. Fans enjoy seeing the personal side of coaches - Nutt once Tweeted about how addicting nail-biting can be - and even if the connection isn't deep, it's a connection that wasn't available before Twitter. "Generally speaking, they'll put as much personal stuff on there as they will football-related stuff," said MSU fan Craig Chrestman (@craigchrestman), 28, of Pontotoc. "It kind of puts a personality with the face, which the fan normally won't get." Mullen and Nutt do use Twitter for work, though. Mullen was Tweeting regularly during the Road Dawgs Tour, letting his followers know about turnout and his interaction with fans, while Nutt has used it mainly as a vehicle to hype the Rebels' upcoming season. "Any time we can network to get information out to fans, to recruits, to Mississippi State people, I think all we're trying to do is promote the program and keep them excited about it," said Mullen, who as of Thursday afternoon had 901 followers. Nutt had 78 followers, but he joined up a few weeks after Mullen. (Nutt could not be reached for comment for this story.)
quote:The fact that its so easy to imagine Nutt enthusiastically tweeting about pickup basketball, fingernail biting and Sonic ice cream cones is what's funny to me.
quote:Now that's funny. I don't care if you are an Ole Miss or Arkansas fan.
