Restrictions placed on social sites

Due to an increase in questionable items posted by student-athletes, SCSU rival UM-Duluth banned its student-athletes from using social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace.

According to SCSU athletic director Morris Kurtz, student-athletes can be viewed in a negative light on Web sites such as badjocks.com.

The Web site, which glorifies athletes from high school to the professional ranks as well as cheerleaders misbehaving, claims to be "Where 'Cops' meets 'Sportscenter.'"

For Web sites like these, social networks like Facebook and Myspace are a blessing in disguise. Athletes have been caught on these social networks misbehaving many ways, such as underage alcohol consumption.

Some instances have even appeared on badjocks.com, an occurrence that has some colleges banning networking Web sites for its student-athletes.

The UM-Duluth athletic department has banned social networking Web sites to try to shield its players from bad publicity in Web sites such as badjocks.com.

Kurtz said he is not sure whether SCSU will travel down the same road as its North Central Conference partner.

"We are in the process of gathering information," he said. "We'll continue to gather information upon all the other schools around the country in terms to what approach they are taking."

Kurtz said there is a policy already set forth for SCSU student-athletes.

"We have a code of conduct where we ask for exemplary behavior from all our student-athletes at all times and all situations, both on-and off-campus," Kurtz said. "We have asked them to go to their Facebook and Myspace accounts and simply remove anything on there that they may feel is not appropriate, something they wouldn't want their mom and dad to look at."

The information-collecting process will continue throughout the school year.

"We will continue to monitor with other schools around the country and formulate a policy, hopefully, in time for fall 2007," Kurtz said.

SCSU softball coach Paula U'Ren said she understands why other schools are looking to ban student-athletes from using Facebook and Myspace.

"I think the athletic department wants to look out for its student athletes," U'Ren said. "Sometimes it is not the athletes that are posting it. It is outside people, whether they are from another school, or maybe someone on campus."

U'Ren said she believes the social network Web sites should be allowed as long as some guidelines are met.

"It is what's currently out there right now for communication," she said. "If it is done responsibly, I don't feel it should be taken away from them. But if there is a violation of it, then they can lose that right to it."

U'Ren has a Myspace and Facebook account, and uses them to keep in contact with alumni and check their players' profile.

Huskies quarterback Jon Quesnel is the president of the SCSU Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).

The mission statement of SAAC, according to the Web site, is to enhance the total student-athlete experience by promoting opportunity for all student-athletes, protecting student-athlete welfare, and fostering a positive student-athlete image.

"I've been to a couple of conferences last summer, and Facebook and Myspace were an issue that came up," Quesnel said. "The main thing that we told our athletes is to make sure the content you have on there is clean. If you are going to be on the site, make sure you don't put yourself in a negative situation where the public can look at you in a negative way."

Quesnel is open to debate about the decisions the athletic department may undertake down the road.

"If the athletic department wanted to (ban Facebook), they would have to sit down with the student-atheletes and get their opinions on it," he said. "I've heard both sides of the argument, and they are both valid. I think that is something they have to research and develop on their own and get the students input on it.

"There are always people out there looking,so just try to keep it as clean as you can."