Finding players to participate in an alumni game often requires last-minute recruiting — and even some arm twisting.

When Chris Bessey was trying to entice former players from Jay, Livermore Falls and Spruce Mountain to participate in such a game last month, he simply put a post on Facebook.

“I have a lot of alumni on there as friends, and we also have a team Facebook page that also has alumni on there,” said Bessey, the Spruce Mountain boys’ basketball coach. “It started trickling in slowly. Then it picked up to where we had 30 alumni between Jay and Livermore Falls.”

But this wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill town alumni game. It was also used as a fund raiser for the Jake Lord Play It Safe Foundation, an organization that promotes safety and awareness in youth sports created in memory of the former Jay athlete. Not only did alumni players from Jay, Livermore Falls and Spruce Mountain attend, but hundreds of others brought their support to the event.

“Without that resource we’d probably would have had to work the phones and send emails,” Bessey said. “We’d probably never have gotten the response that we did. It got the word out and helped make it a great event.”

Bessey is a regular user of Facebook and Twitter. He has Facebook pages for both his high school basketball team as well as the University of Maine Farmington baseball team he coaches. He also uses Twitter regularly to follow along on the latest sports news, including local scores.

He likes the ability to communicate with athletes and parents on the team pages while also being able to converse with friends on his own personal accounts. He’s careful not to blend the two. He thinks it is important to have separation from his athletes.

“I don’t have any players on my Facebook page, that includes the college players,” Bessey said.

When he was hired as the Beavers’ baseball coach at Farmington, he immediately announced it on his own Facebook page, much to the chagrin of UMF.

“UMF hadn’t actually announced it yet,” Bessey said. “They weren’t even really using Facebook and Twitter at that time. Now all the colleges in our conference are using it. We can’t use it as a recruiting tool, but I think UMF is using it as a marketing tool for the school.”

UMF brought in a speaker to address issues of social media with athletes this fall.

Bessey has used social media for marketing as well. His family-owned company Bessey Designs has its own Facebook page. People are able to see the kind of athletic wear the company produces. The more “likes” the company page accumulates, the more people they can reach.

“A lot of business has come from that,” said Bessey. “People spread the word to our Facebook page. Every time we post something that we just produced, you’re reaching 400 or 500 people instantly. As far as marketing, it really doesn’t cost anything.”

Going Social

• Social media becomes part of high school sports
• Social media makes teamwork easier
• Social media doesn’t wait to spread the news
• Social media becomes a scoreboard
• Social media by the numbers

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