The Twitter Lesson Of The Day

Of course, the tragedy today surrounding Yeardley Love's murder takes precedent over anything that happens with the Virginia lacrosse programs at the moment, but the truth is that the events of the day could have a major impact on whether or not both programs complete their seasons.

So when Quint Kessenich tweeted around 3PM EST that Virginia had announced that they were ending the mens' and womens' lacrosse seasons immediately, it was shocking in the swiftness but not shocking in the reasoning.

Except that, well, it wasn't true at all.  The idea of canceling the season is a topic up for discussion but that decision hasn't been made. In fact, according to Virginia AD Craig Littlepage, it's not even a question.

When asked how the death would affect the upcoming tournament, athletics director Craig Littlepage said it was "not even entering into our thoughts" but that for the players' sake they wanted to "try to get back to some things that are normal."

Kessenich later wrote as much, saying "The Virginia lacrosse teams have NOT canceled their seasons - that have met and discussed the possibility, in light of the news in UVA."  And then...POOF.  Quint disappeared from Twitter.  Account gone.

Did he pull it down due to angry responses?  Was he told to by the powers-that-be?  Remains to be seen.  But the ever-important lesson of GETTING YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT BEFORE PUTTING IT IN THE INTERNET has never been more apparent. 

Seems as though this is one of those situations that speculation should take a backseat on.  The teams are meeting tonight to discuss a whole bunch of issues and who knows what kind of emotions are involved.  Thoughts go out to the Love family and we'll see where things go from here.  And THEN we'll tweet about it.

(412 Lax has the full timeline of today's tweetvents)