As Long As You're the Same Person in Both Places

We recently had some preseason features on an athlete at our university. Two newspaper writers both indicated they needed to check some information on the athlete. Both items came from the athlete's Facebook page. Both also indicated their first stop before doing an interview was to pull up the Facebook to see what angles they might find for a feature.

Just another area where students need to be careful, but a special case for athletes. Many times, hobbies, personal likes and dislikes, family information is included in press guides or official athletic department website bios. If the social networking website profile echoes or expands on the personality of the student-athlete, great. However, if it reveals a completely different person, then that's going to be an issue for both the athletic department -- caught "red handed" perpetrating a false image -- and the athlete -- particularly if the fun and interesting new hobbies involve questionable activities.

For example, Christian conservative athlete in official bios found simultaneously to favor conspicuous consumption of hemp products.