The Herald Online

Pictures of intoxicated ASU athletes on Facebook.com has prompted administration and coaches to urge all athletes to remove themselves from the popular online student directory because it is damaging to Indian Athletics and students' futures.

Facebook.com is a free web directory for college students. Once a student registers with the site, they are given a profile that includes the student's address, major, phone number and other personal information, as well as links them with other students across the country. The recent addition of the "photo album" feature to the site allows students to post personal pictures. Anyone on the site can post pictures and "tag," or attribute, anyone to those pictures. The site has a disclaimer about posting nudity, but says nothing about posting pictures of intoxicated students.

"We want to take a pro-active approach and we want to educate the students of what is out there and how that information can be used against them," Melanie Richardson, associate director of athletic administration, said. "In general, the pictures could be a danger to the student or to the University."

Athletes have been asked not to speak about the controversy, but an anonymous athlete said Dr. Dean Lee, athletic director, and head coaches are concerned about how the athletes were portraying ASU and themselves on Facebook.com. The source said there were too many pictures of students drinking and at bars, and that this "is not what an Indian athlete should be doing."

The anonymous source also said the administration is concerned that these pictures could harm athletes' chances of getting jobs after college because corporate America can view these photographs.

"They are making too big of a deal about it," the athlete said, "It is ridiculous because we are still college students."

The source has not removed their account from Facebook.com and does not plan to do so unless it becomes mandatory. Dr. Lee is the one that could decide whether ASU athletes have to delete their accounts.

Athletes said that some administrators and coaches see Facebook.com as an extreme dating site, and they were concerned about people that would try to stalk students on Facebook.com.

Richardson said they have not been having any problems with Facebook.com or with any particular athlete, but they did look at the site to see how it works. According to Richardson, they have read about Facebook.com and know it is imbedded in college campuses across the U.S.

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