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On Jan. 15, NCAA president Charlie Baker posted a two-minute video on X/Twitter addressing the explosive federal charges that dozens of Division I men’s basketball players were involved in a bribery-driven point-shaving and game-fixing scheme.
Later that same day, Baker used the same social media platform to share that he thinks Jim Thorpe is the greatest athlete of all time, that the death of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington hit him hard, and that the TV show Friday Night Lights managed to be excellent from start to finish.
Baker, who is 69 and has more than 93,000 followers, has become a full-fledged reply guy.
His account has been active since 2009 and became verified in 2014. Baker has always been an active user—in 2015, Boston Magazine published a story called “Charlie Baker Is Awesome At Twitter.” That story had nothing to do with him being a reply guy; instead, it focused on his selfie-taking proficiency, his propensity to engage with reporters, and his correct usage of the quote tweet feature. As of Jan. 21, Baker has made almost 9,000 total posts.
Starting late last year, there was a noticeable uptick in the volume of his replies to accounts posing light, offbeat questions—like what Christmas film do you watch every Christmas (A Christmas Story) or who is your favorite Chicago Bears player ever besides Walter Payton (Dick Butkus).
Baker, who was named NCAA president in December 2022, has plenty of experience communicating to the public. Before joining the NCAA, he served two full terms as governor of Massachusetts.
You can learn a lot about Baker from reading his replies. The greatest action movie star of the 1980s? Clint Eastwood. The movie that introduced him to Harrison Ford? Star Wars. Which comedian would he bring back to life? Robin Williams or George Carlin.
Most of the time, his answers are short and contain no additional context. Other times, he pontificates. In October, for example, he replied to a prompt asking who was missing from a list of the 10 greatest rock lead singers of all time like so: “Wondering why I don’t see a lot of love for Chester Bennington. The guy could sing just about anything and his range was insane.”
Baker isn’t doing it for the engagement. In fact, most of his replies receive little attention, and in some cases they still have zero likes. Yet he continues to post, giving the internet a glimpse into who he is—in between posts about real issues facing college sports.
On Dec. 18, for instance, Baker railed against the inclusion of college sports on prediction-market platforms, in response to the news that Kalshi had taken steps to introduce markets over whether NCAA D-I football and basketball players would enter the transfer portal (Kalshi never actually put those markets up).
“It is already bad enough that student-athletes face harassment and abuse for lost bets on game performance, and now Kalshi wants to offer bets on their transfer decisions and status,” Baker wrote.
Later that day, he responded to a post asking about users’ favorite Val Kilmer films, excluding Top Gun or Heat. His answer? The 1985 comedy/sci-fi movie Real Genius.
Baker was not immediately available to comment. Tim Buckley, senior VP of external affairs for the NCAA—who served as chief of staff under Baker when he was governor—tells FOS that Baker runs his own X/Twitter account, and has always done so.
“As NCAA president he reads a ton of social media to know what student-athletes, coaches, AD’s and reporters are talking about—constantly, seven days a week, early in the AM and late at night,” Buckley says. “It’s a lot.”
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