OSU’s Mike Boynton Willing to do ‘A Lot’ on Social Media
Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton Jr. is willing to do a lot to help his program’s recruiting efforts on social media.
But he DOES have a line.
“The only one I’ve ever turned down was my SID (sports information director), he had this great idea of me doing a backflip into my pool,” Boynton said. “And first of all, I don’t backflip.”
Boynton spoke about social media and a wide range of issues with former Nebraska coach Tim Miles during the ‘Inside the Mind of Miles’ podcast, part of the ‘Field of 68’ podcast network.
The fourth-year head coach is working to get the Cowboys into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in his tenure. But he needs good players to do it, and social media is a part of the recruiting strategy of any Division I basketball program. Boynton and the Cowboys are no exception, and the coach is quick to point out that his athletic department has a staff that brings him good ideas and handles the particulars of setting up things like video shoots.
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As long as those ideas help and he’s comfortable with it, no suggestion is off-limits, saying he’s ‘Ok with the discomfort.’
“This is a hard job,” Boynton said. “You’ve got to enjoy it. You’ve got to enjoy the moments that you get to have success. You got to celebrate those successes, and you got to be able to not take yourself too seriously.”
That social media work has paid off in the recruiting department.
While many focus on Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 recruit in the nation, coming to Oklahoma State as part of the 2020 Class, it ignores the hard work overall Boynton and his staff have done the past two years. He pulled the No. 13 class in the country in 2020, anchored by Cunningham, but populated with a four-star player in Rondel Walker, who is coming off the bench. Matthew Alexander-Moncrieffe, another part of that 2020 Class, just posted a double-double against TCU.
Boynton’s 2019 Class was No. 24 in the country and included a four-star recruit in Avery Anderson III, along with two other Top 140 players in Chris Harris Jr. and Kalib Boone. Boone’s brother, Keylan, was also part of the class.
The Cowboys don’t have a signee for 2021. But don’t take that as a sign that he’s slacking. He just doesn’t have any scholarships to give because nearly the entire team is made up of underclassmen.
Boynton also admits that his relationship with social media has evolved over the years, to the point where he’s, somewhat reluctantly, found a new app to use in the last year.
“I fought the social media deal for a while myself and I got on Twitter, I’m thinking 2009,” Boynton said. “That was good for me. I never really did Facebook. But Twitter, I got really comfortable with, because I could kind of keep up with the news and what was going on. Then I kind of lost my taste for that because it became like this, ‘Who’s got the most offer announcements on Twitter.’ I just got an Instagram, this summer, because of the pandemic and not being able to go see people. You know my staff said, ‘Hey man, all the kids are on Instagram.’ I thought, ‘Yeah, OK, I’ll get on it.’ I didn’t know until this past weekend that I hadn’t been doing Instagram right. I wasn’t cropping my pictures the right way.”
At least Boynton has ‘people’ for that, and as long as the recruits keep coming, Boynton and his staff will keep posting.
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