"Social media push erupts to 'dim lights for Tark'"

From KLAS-TV Las Vegas

Analysis by Samantha O'Brien in SRM 334 (section 2)

Hall of Fame coach of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Jerry Tarkanian passed away last Wednesday, February 11th. He had taken the Runnin’ Rebels to four Final Fours and won the national championship in 1990. Over the course of his coaching career with the Rebels, he had a win-loss ratio of 509-105. His entire coaching career consisted of a 7.90 winning percentage, which is extremely high. He fought and received $2.5 million after a long battle over suing the NCAA for trying to kick him out of college basketball.

After the death of “Tark the Shark,” two Las Vegas locals Tony Cordasco and Scott Gulbransen felt that his life meant much more to Las Vegas than to simply have a public and private funeral. They felt the community, as a whole, should celebrate the life of Coach Jerry Tarkanian. They thought, what better way to do that than to honor him with one of the most noble Las Vegas tributes there is: having the Las Vegas strip dim their lights for a few minutes. This is usually only done for entertainers and Earth Day, but many people believe Coach Tark deserved it too.

The social media, or more specifically, Twitter, blew up once the #DimTheLights4Tark hashtag began trending. Once news spread of his death, it took less than a week for it to take over twitter and actually got most of the hotels and casinos to agree to dim their lights for three minutes in his honor.

Not only was that trending, but there is now also a twitter page called Dim The Lights 4 Tark furthering the campaign. There is now a #PackTheMackInBlack hashtag. This one is to spread the word about the blackout in the gym for the Runnin’ Rebels game this Wednesday (tonight). All players will be wearing black, and they want all of the fans to do it as well, out of respect for Coach Tark. The dimming of the lights will take place a few hours after the game at 10:30 pm PT for three minutes.

This is important to our class because it shows the power of social media. We often see a lot of stories about negative things that athletes, coaches, and administrators do or say, and they spread like wild fire. The same goes for good things too. Two men wanted to do something special for Coach Tark. Less than a week later, they get approval for this tribute, and the news spread through the entire United States. It only took one week for the message to reach all areas of the country, and probably other countries as well. The Internet, social media, is a very powerful tool. When used the right way, we can do great things with it.