Published: May 03, 2008 10:07 pm            

COLLEGE ATHLETICS: Facebook: A whole new ball game

One of America’s youngest athletic directors admits he’s old school on this one.

Just past his 35th birthday and approaching the two-year employment anniversary as Niagara University’s AD, Ed McLaughlin is like many administrators and coaches involved in college athletics. He doesn’t use social networking Web sites, and doesn’t seem inclined to do so.

But he’s certainly found Facebook and MySpace a part of his world.

“I stay away from Facebook,” says McLaughlin, noting that PurpleEagles.com is the only Web site he contributes personal information to. “But in the last couple years, all of us have had to learn more about it.”

A billion-dollar industry in its infancy, social networking services are, with limited exceptions, for the college-aged crowd.

While McLaughlin acknowledges these sites — specifically Facebook — can be beneficial for marketing events and communicating with students, he says they make him “nervous all the time.”

“You have to make sure you understand it,” he adds. “Because of all the pitfalls.”



Facebook flare-ups

Prior to McLaughlin’s arrival at Niagara in the summer of 2006, the university had been embarrassed by images of student-athletes on the swimming and diving teams drinking alcohol illegally that popped up on Facebook, and also evidence of hazing by members of the women’s lacrosse team that wound up on the watchdog Web site BadJocks.com.

Such scandals were prevalent elsewhere at the time, reportedly involving student-athletes referencing drugs and sex, criticizing coaches and putting their teams at risk for NCAA violations.

On the other side of the Grand Island Bridge, administrators at the University at Buffalo were paying attention, and began to informally educate athletes on the perils of being a familiar face on a digital campus.

By the fall of 2007, UB had written specific guidelines for social networking sites, and required its athletes to read and sign the policy.

“In general, the policy states: ‘You are responsible for anything you put on these pages,’” says Paul Vecchio, associate athletic director. “The kind of colloquial thing we say to the kids is: ‘If your mom was looking at it, would you put it up?’”

So Andy Robinson couldn’t claim ignorance last month when he was outed by UB’s student-run newspaper, The Spectrum, for posting an offer to pay another student to write his term paper in the Facebook marketplace.

Robinson, nearly a senior and the team’s leading scorer last season, gained notoriety for his attempt to commit academic fraud, and scrutiny from the vice provost of undergraduate education at UB. Robinson “took corrective steps,” according to coach Reggie Witherspoon, apologized for his message and was suspended indefinitely from basketball-related activity. Robinson and Witherspoon were not made available to comment for this story.

“Our reaction in all corners is disappointment,” Vecchio says. “The same disappointment you have with your own children, when you know they’ve been taught better and they do something you’ve warned them about.

“And Andy is a great kid. So you kind of scratch your head.”



Navigating your network

Ashley Turner was introduced to Facebook as a freshman.

“Wow,” was her initial reaction. “That’s weird.”

“I didn’t want everybody in my life like that,” says Turner, a four-year soccer player and the exiting Student-Athlete Advisory Committee president who was recently given the university’s Ideal Bull Distinguished Student-Athlete Leadership Award.

“And now I literally check my Facebook every day.”

Turner says student-athletes need to realize they are “just like anybody else” on campus, and they’re online persona must reflect that.

“You have privileges as an athlete. You work hard, but you’re privileged,” she says. “Yeah, it’s unfortunate we can’t put fun stuff up on our pages, or go to parties, even if we are of age. But we represent UB, and I want to represent UB in a positive light.”

As a senior captain, Turner says one of her responsibilities was to make sure her teammates knew not to shame UB online. The first step was to emphasize not doing anything shameful in the first place, Turner says.

Sara Prybyl, Niagara’s graduating SAAC president and women’s basketball captain, says student-athletes are vulnerable on Facebook.

“You have to monitor yourself. There’s a certain level of privacy people expect,” she says. “It comes down to monitoring what you do in any other part of your life as a campus leader. You don’t find pictures of yourself drinking if you aren’t drinking.”



Staying online

Even older Facebook users might be amazed at how the ubiquitous the site is on campus.

“Nobody makes a phone call anymore,” Turner says. “Everything is through Facebook. Jobs and grad schools are contacting me through Facebook. Some professors send me assignments through Facebook.”

Turner also notes that she uses Facebook to manage “hundreds” of contacts she made at a leadership conference in Florida.

Prybyl uses Facebook to organize SAAC functions and connect with basketball players around the country.

“I’m from Toronto,” says Jessel Mangal, a junior baseball player who will be Niagara’s SAAC president in the fall. “(Facebook) is how I stay in touch with everybody back home.”

Although the UB men’s basketball team, which includes two Canadians and one German player, collectively decided to remove all of their profiles, UB won’t follow other universities in banning athletes from social networking sites, Vecchio says.

“(AD) Warde (Manuel) has been steadfast that we’re not going to take this away from the student-athletes,” Vecchio says. “Our country was formed on some basic principles, and one of them is freedom of speech.”

“Aside from my firm belief in the First Amendment,” McLaughlin adds, “I don’t think I could ban it because it can be such a useful tool if used in the right way.”

Niagara has created a Facebook group for its student fans, The N Zone, and UB’s mascot has his own profile.

“And if you ban it, you’re not teaching a lesson,” McLaughlin says. “It’s a life skill. There are a lot of students who have inappropriate stuff on their Facebook pages, and they don’t ever know because all of their friends are doing it, and nobody’s telling them that’s probably not the smartest thing to do.”

“I’ve heard stories from friends of mine who hire people for a living,” Vecchio says. “They’ve eliminated candidates because of their Facebook profiles.”

Ideally, captains assume the responsibility of monitoring their teammates online, according to McLaughlin and Vecchio, but more coaches are getting involved.

“One of our coaches has an account he uses just to check our accounts,” Mangal says.

But Monteagle Ridge isn’t completely wired.

“It’s kind of cool,” says Joe Mihalich, Niagara’s dean of coaching. “But I wouldn’t even know how to get on there.”

Contact reporter Jonah Bronstein at 282-2311, ext. 2258.

        

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