There's a column in here somewhere, and we'll soon explore the topic more in-depth, but did you see these two stories?
Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports absolutely crushed it with this explanatory piece about how NFL teams are doing due diligence on prospects. Show them an attractive woman's profile, get on to their Facebook page and then sift through all the friends, pictures and comments:
"It works like magic," said a personnel source that was familiar with his team's tactic of using counterfeit profiles to link to Facebook and Myspace pages of potential draft picks. The source directed Yahoo! Sports to one of the team's "ghost profiles" - a term he coined because "once the draft is over, they disappear. It's like they were never there."
Elsewhere in cyberspace, John Calipari's daughter Megan changed the status update on her Facebook page and broke a major college basketball story in the process. Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com details the scoop:
JOSH PASTNER IS THE NEW COACH AT MEMPHIS!! YAY!!
Chances are you won't be drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs this month, or be named the head coach of a Conference USA program anytime soon, but these types of stories raise a whole new set of issues for students, reporters, employers and anyone who has a Facebook account.
What's your reaction?
Good for those scouts, coaches, athletic directors etc. It will give them a better picture of the athlete as a person. Will they do something that could jeopardize their ability to play? will they embarrass the team in some way?
Businesses are doing this too, before they hire college students. According to my husband, they google recruits at his company pretty deeply and will look at Facebooks etc. They partly look at the person's interests to see how they align with the company's objectives or the position they are being hired for.
Students and athletes need to realize that the internet is not a private place and you need to be alert as to what you put out there. Especially since it will always be out there somewhere...