As you might have already heard and read, Twitter has had a huge impact on the world of sports, but not all players and coaches are on board with the tweet machine. Sure, there are plenty of players and coaches who utilize the social media site to keep fans engaged and up-to-date with the latest news surrounding a team and/or league. But there are just as many players and coaches who use the site for not so good things like writing whatever is on their minds without giving their inner thoughts a second thought before sending a tweet. Aside from the lack of double-checking, the folks who are fixated on multiple screens at a time might end up sending cringe-worthy tweets without even knowing it.
President of NBC Olympics production and programming, Jim Bell, said the multi-screen universe—especially of "those pesky millennials, and I’ve got four of them"—has become a fact of business and personal life.
“They almost can’t watch TV without a second screen...I think Twitter serves, whether it’s a media event or politics or sports, as a very capable second screen when your feeds are populated with the right things. It can also end up devolving quickly into garbage and insults.”
Bell has a point, but it's not like all players are going to immediately follow his lead and give their tweets a second glance before sending them out.
So let's take a stroll down memory lane and check out 15 tweets these athletes should have never sent.
15 Lance Armstrong Gave The Twitterverse His Cell Phone Number
By now, you should've already seen the strange tweet that was sent out by former road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong.
Armstrong has been the center of attention in regards to his previous doping allegations and investigations, but this odd tweet made a lot of his followers wonder what the heck was going on. The cell phone number turned out to be of Tyler Laidler, a recent graduate of the Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, British Columbia.
According to Deadspin, a tipster pointed out that another Tyler Laidler, who claimed to be a member of the Canadian Air Force, tweeted out the exact same number in July. So are there two Laidlers and is one of them Armstrong? We will never know unless if one of them comes forward to help break down the mystery of who actually was the owner of this now publicly known number.
14 Troy Aikman Tried To DM A Girl On Twitter, But Failed Miserably
When you're 46 years old like Fox's lead NFL analyst and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman, you might have trouble grasping technology and this includes social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Aikman is 51 years old now, but we'll never forget his unfortunate Twitter fail when he tried to DM (direct message) a younger actress named Mari Morrow.
It was obvious that no one told him that putting "DM" in front of a message wasn't going to make it an actual DM. It also looked like Aikman was trying to hit on Morrow—who's actually a pretty attractive woman—with the smiley face at the end.
Hopefully, someone has taught Aikman how to mack on other girls and women in private, so he won't get embarrassed by the Twitterverse ever again. So many people managed to take a screenshot of the embarrassing tweet before Aikman took down the tweet.
13 Kevin Durant Doesn't Know What Romance Sounds Like
Kevin Durant appeared to have sent this out on a dare. At least we hope so, because if this was his way of reaching out to Scarlett Johansson, then he really has to work on his game off the court. Durant didn't give a reason as to why he sent out the tweet.
Word of advice; in general, women tend not to find it super romantic or flattering when you tell them you'd like to drink their bath water.
Durant obviously seems to spend a little too much time on Twitter, as he constantly tweets out some thoughts that should stay private and tends to respond aggressively to certain fans who criticize him. But if Durant ever wanted a chance with Scarlett, this tweet probably ruined his chances for good.
12 Skip Bayless Clearly Doesn't Know As Much As He Thinks
Skip Bayless is perhaps the mist annoying sportscaster out there, but he continues to drive ratings whether he's on ESPN or Fox Sports because people just can't get enough of hot takes. Well, this tweet from Bayless turned out to be hot garbage. Back in 2014, Bayless was convinced that Johnny Manziel was going to be the next big thing in the NFL and said the Texans should have used their first overall pick on him. Well, instead they took Jadeveon Clowney and Bayless said the Texans would regret it. Almost four years later, we can see that Manziel became one of the biggest draft busts in recent memory and it made it a little more difficult for all of us to take Bayless seriously.
11 J.R. Smith Spent Time With "The Girl With The Biggest A** Ever"
Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard J.R. Smith was recently suspended for one game for throwing a bowl of soup at Cavaliers assistant coach Damon Jones, but let's not forget when he was fined $25,000 for tweeting a photo of "the girl with the biggest a** ever."
The girl with the thong turned out to be Tahiry Jose, a self-described "bartender-turned-magazine cover model."
When asked about the inappropriate photo fiasco before the New York Knicks' loss at the Milwaukee Bucks, Smith simply told the New York Times, "I get a lot of criticism for everything, so I don’t worry about it. I just focus on the game." Smith later said that he regretted his past decision, admitted that it was a distraction for his team, and deleted the scandalous tweet.
There were so many other ways that Smith could've shown the world that he wasn't a lone traveler on the road. This wasn't the brightest idea.
10 Mike Wallace Shows His Ignorance
Mike Wallace doesn't seem to know that sexual preference isn't a choice. Back when Jason Collins came out of the closet a few years ago to become the first openly gay NBA player in league history, Wallace felt the need to chime in on Collins' "choice" of lifestyle. We hope the retweets Wallace got were people pointing out how stupid this tweet was, but in any case, there was really no need for Wallace to bring negative attention to himself. As we know, Jason Collins doesn't choose to like men, no different than straight people not choosing who they're attracted to. Plus, we don't know what Wallace is complaining about here; with all the beautiful women in the world, wouldn't you want less competition from fellow men?
9 Manti Te'o Responded To Female Catfish
In case you need a refresher, then linebacker Manti Te'o was a victim of a catfishing hoax, which began in late 2009. A female Stanford Cardinal volleyball player named Lennay Kekua sent T'eo a friend request on Facebook when he was a freshman at Notre Dame. T'eo responded to her with "I'm Manti."
The pair exchanged messages, tweets and phone calls with each other. Fast forward a couple of years later and Kekua informed Te'o that she had leukemia and eventually died from the cancer.
Despite warning signs, T'eo tweeted sweet lines to his fictional girlfriend like "I miss you!" and "you will always be with me wherever I go!"
At least Te'o bounced back nicely with an Instagram model named Jovi Nicole, and yes, she's real! She has been quietly connected to the 27-year-old since 2016. We're happy for him and we hope they'll last for years to come!
8 Cardale Jones Shared His Thoughts On Student-Athletes
Cardale Jones currently plays for the Los Angeles Chargers as a quarterback, but you might've remembered the debatable tweet that he sent years ago.
When Jones was a third-string quarterback at Ohio State University, he asked the Twitterverse why he had to go to class if he went to the school to play football and added that standard classes were pointless.
Most likely, someone in the Buckeyes' athletic department saw the tweet and demanded that Jones take it down because the university later released a statement that said "We allow our student-athletes the opportunity to express themselves via the social mediums...What we do ask of them and communicate to them is…always remember not to post or tweet anything that could embarrass themselves, their team, teammates, the university, their family or other groups, organizations or people."
While Jones does have a point, it wasn't necessary for him to tweet something like that as a student-athlete at the time.
7 MWP Wished A Happy Labor Day...On Memorial Day In May
Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest) is a NBA G League coach and a former NBA player who once introduced reality television star Khloe Kardashian to then-Los Angeles Lakers teammate Lamar Odom at a party, but later turned his back on KoKo and her problematic family for many reasons after Odom suffered a near-fatal overdose in the Love Ranch brothel on the outskirts of Las Vegas, Nevada.
But let's not forget when World Peace wished everyone a Happy Labor Day on a Memorial Day in May 2012.
Maybe he forgot what day Memorial Day fell on or he was wasted and/or high, but it was still a tweet that he should be embarrassed about, whether he meant to be intentional or not. Anyways, we hope you all enjoyed Memorial Day 2012 and thanked all the military men and women who served, just so we could have our freedom here in the United States.
6 Laremy Tunsil: How Did This Get Out?
To be fair, Laremy Tunsil didn't send this picture out himself, as it turns out, he was hacked, according to his agent.
"It is B.S. Somebody hacked into his account," agent Jimmy Sexton earlier told ESPN.
Tunsil obviously should've known better than to let a picture of him hitting on a bong get out there, but he was the victim of someone violating his privacy. Tunsil was expected to be a top five pick in the 2016 draft but due to picture, he slipped into the teens before the Dolphins finally drafted him in the middle of the first round. It's likely this picture getting out cost Tunsil millions on his rookie contract.
5 Chad Ochocinco Tweeted During A NFL Game
When Chad Johnson was Chad Ochocinco, he drew a lot of positive and negative attention to himself. During the 2010 preseason, the NFL handed Ochocino a $25,000 fine for not only for one violation, but two violations, for sending in-game tweets during the Cincinnati Bengals' preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles on August 20, 2010.
According to ESPN, NFL players are not permitted to post messages on social media websites starting 90 minutes before kickoff and until postgame media obligations are fulfilled.
Even though Ochocinco had a valid point—physical hits are not fun to deal with—he still commented on his $25,000 fine and apologized to the NFL for his actions.
After apologizing to the league, Ochocinco returned to Twitter to apologize to—you guessed it—commissioner Roger Goodell. Ochocinco tweeted: "Dad again I apologize 2 you for my tweet, as my father I understand you've to discipline, can we try timeout next time please :)"
4 Jabari Parker Suffered A Brain Fart
Jabari Parker is the son of former NBA player, Sonny Parker, and has been playing for the Milwaukee Bucks as a power/small forward since 2014. Jabari is a Chicago native, but he defied the odds when he went to the Brew City. Jabari also happened to run into a living legend wearing a 1954 National Champ in May 2014, but wasn't sure what his name was; or at least he didn't think so.
Maybe Jabari simply suffered a brain fart or the old man was just wearing a hat that said "1954 National Champions." Either way, Jabari did not make himself appear to be intelligent by taking a picture of a possible legend and writing a brainless caption for the general public to read, favorite and retweet.
Well, at least we know Jabari can pay attention to the little details that most people tend to overlook while they're out and about in the neighborhood.
3 Ozzie.Guillen.used.way.too.many.periods.
Venezuelan shortstop Ozzie Guillen retired from the MLB nearly two decades ago, but a couple of his previous tweets will make you wonder: what.is.ozzie.guillen.doing?
Don't get us wrong, Guillen was a respected player for his continuous hustle and love of the game, and became the first Latino manager to win a World Series when the Chicago White Sox swept the Houston Astros in four games in the 2005 WS. But his tweets were definitely something else as he used way too many periods—literally one period after each word—and made a lot of people wonder if he truly understood the proper English spelling, grammar and punctuation.
By looking at these baffling tweets, you can confirm that Guillen needed more than just one punctuation lesson to learn from his mistakes.
We hope that learned from his mistakes, so that nobody's eyes are going to squint at the computer/laptop/tablet screen moving forward.
2 DeSean Jackson Tried His Hand At Marketing
Something seemed totally off about this tweet, but we just couldn't put our fingers on it.
DeSean Jackson is a Southern California boy who played college football as a wide receiver at the University of California, Berkeley, and got drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in 2008. Jackson is playing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers now, but when he was a Philadelphia Eagle, he apparently tried his hand at social media marketing and ended up failing miserably.
Jackson had since deleted the questionable tweet, but it was obtained by various sources, so the masses were able to figure out that this was nothing more than a public relations fail on social media as a flood of other athletes tweeted the exact same line with the matching mention and hashtag to go along with it. So here is the real question: Will we ever know how Jackson really felt about the ESPYs Nokia Pre-Party?
1 Magic Johnson Ended Up Being Captain Obvious
Los Angeles Lakers' president of basketball operations and former L.A. Lakers point guard Magic Johnson has made copious amounts of headlines on and off the court, especially his HIV announced that pushed him to retire as soon as possible. Despite his unforeseen retirement, he was still voted into the 1992 NBA All-Star Game as one of the starters.
Don't get us wrong, Johnson was a tremendous player with a decorated collection of hardware, but he ended up being Captain Obvious with this tweet that he sent out in March 2014.
Ironically, the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat made the 2014 NBA Finals with the Spurs coming out as the 2014 NBA Champions after wiping out the Heat in five games.
We don't believe in jinxes, but we have a slight feeling that Johnson somehow jinxed the upcoming matchup of the 2014 NBA Finals. Come on, do not spoil the fun for the rest of us!