For the seventh time, The Speaking Specialists conducted communications and media training workshops at the Women's Final Four in St. Louis. As has been the case in the past year, much of the focus was on the internet and the social websites that are causing some headaches for women's programs on both the high school and college level.

  The turnout was great and the participation levels were outstanding. The overwhelming majority of coaches were not concerned about "Twitter" which is receiving a lot of ink in the mainstream media these days. College and prep athletes are texting, emailing and using Facebook; the idea of "tweeting" fans is not realistic on this level; besides they want to communicate with each other and not media members. Many thought it was a fad.

  Facebook remains a concern, especially as it pertains to recruiting. They aren't worried about being able to monitor these websites; many of them have their own Facebook or LinkedIn sites so they are on anyway. One coach laughed that he was approached by a firm that wanted to charge a couple of thousand dollars to monitor his players' socialweb sites. He said if he could afford to do that he would go into the web business themselves.

  What coaches want -- and what we have provided -- is a program to make their players aware of the implications of what they do on line and the impact it has on their own futures if they post racy pictures or so things that will go on other team's bulletin boards.

  Great time; great sessions.  The fact it snowed two days in St.Louis, my hometown, probably kept the coaches in a more business format. Too bad the NCAA games weren't closer but the men were also victims of blow outs.