Kent State bans athletes from having facebook accounts

[Beano's Fourth Chin]

Athletics Director Laing Kennedy recently told student-athletes they have until Aug. 1 to remove their Facebook profiles, citing a need to protect both their identities and the university's image. "We're really concerned about the safety of our student-athletes and some of the personal information some of them have on there," he said. ... If student-athletes don't remove their profiles by the deadline, they risk losing their scholarships, he said. Coaches and athletics counselors will monitor the site for violators.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/26/194217&tid=153

jkm and I discussed this months ago. I have a feeling that more schools will be doing this and that at some point, there will be a pretty major facebook scandal in the NCAA before it gets better.

[yermom]

yeah, i saw that yesterday... seems a bit harsh... why not just let them know what not to post?

are they going to ban them from MySpace and Friendster next? how about Angelfire or Geocities...

[Rhino]

They should all have a class about what they post, that's for sure.

[Beano's Fourth Chin]

If I were them, I wouldn't worry so much about the athlete's pages (Make them sit through a class on what's appropriate and turn them loose), but the pictures that other people post of the athletes on their pages.

[Beano's Fourth Chin]

are they going to ban them from MySpace and Friendster next? how about Angelfire or Geocities...

Probably

[yermom]

although Facebook is a little strange, i think they are in league with the schools or someting

on MySpace someone could easily make a page that looks like it's Adrian Peterson's, etc... with Facebook you have to use your school email address, although i guess you can change info once you are in

[slickdawg]

Is stanley1 banned there too? :D

[NormanPride]

Well, think about all the stupid stuff that normal people post on their webpages/myspaces/facebooks. Now think about if all that was in the public eye and scrutinized constantly. It's a huge risk to let these kids have personal spaces like this when they, whether they intend to or not, represent their schools every second of their existence.

And if you think a bunch of 18 year old star athletes are going to pay attention in a boring class like "what not to post on the web" then you're kidding yourself. If anything, it would probably just teach them better how to screw up. I'd give them a video like the raiders did. :D

[Beano's Fourth Chin]

although Facebook is a little strange, i think they are in league with the schools or someting

on MySpace someone could easily make a page that looks like it's Adrian Peterson's, etc... with Facebook you have to use your school email address, although i guess you can change info once you are in

Is that how it works? I thought facebook was completely separate, but I can see how it would benefit them to work with the schools.

It's certainly a new situation that athletes find themselves in. In the past, you had to know someone who knew someone to find the skinny on athletes. You had to wait until it got bad enough for the news (88) before you knew of their off the field antics. Now anyone with a .edu address can find out almost instantly.

[Sooner Born Sooner Bred]

although Facebook is a little strange, i think they are in league with the schools or someting

on MySpace someone could easily make a page that looks like it's Adrian Peterson's, etc... with Facebook you have to use your school email address, although i guess you can change info once you are inThat happened to DJ Wolfe. Someone started a page that was supposed to be his, but it wasn't. He ended up holding up his email address in his profile pic for a while.