A message to Eugene Monroe, Kevin Ogletree, Cedric Peerman, John Phillips, Clint Sintim and other NFL prospects: Do not accept Facebook friend requests from any unknown beautiful women.
At least not until after the 2009 NFL Draft April 25 and 26.
That’s because those blue eyes looking at you from her profile picture might not really be hers. Rather, they could very well be those of a middle-aged, visor wearing, Xs and Os drawing male.
At the beginning of the month, Yahoo! Sports broke a story about a practice that was becoming common across the NFL: teams creating “ghost” Facebook and Myspace accounts to gain access to personal information about potential draft picks.
From incriminating pictures to embarrassing wall posts, the teams are starting to use information posted in cyberspace to judge the character of NFL-bound players. And in an age when so much of our personal information is posted on the Internet, it is no surprise that professional teams are starting to try to tap into those resources. What is surprising, however, is the deceptive means by which they are operating.
Rather than receiving a Facebook friend request from a team owner, general manager or coach, college players instead will receive one from, say, “Cindy Johnson.” Naturally, “Cindy’s” profile picture won’t be of the true creator of the account: the owner, GM, coach or other front office personnel. It will be of some bombshell in a bikini.
And college players are taking the bait. Recently, the Minnesota Vikings came across a picture of an undisclosed player who is shown sitting on the ground with drugs and money.
There is something that feels inherently wrong with what these teams are doing. They are gaining access to important information, but they are doing so dishonestly. These organizations are evaluating integrity through duplicity. How ironic.
And no, these teams are not simply accessing “public information.” Just because someone has an incriminating picture on his Facebook page does not give a stranger permission to see it. Yes, it is a dumb decision to have that available for his network “friends.” No, that does not give anyone carte blanche to gain access to it.
Nobody is going to deny the importance of knowing the character of a potential draft pick. Teams are going to great lengths to get a thorough background check of his personality, I.Q., work ethic and what he likes to do in his free time. And they should — they are about to make a huge financial investment.
But any investigative organization has bounds within which they must work. From the FBI to the Atlanta Falcons, there are rules of engagement. And whoever regulates these rules should remember this is the NFL, not the CIA.
Privacy rights aside, there is something off-putting about a relationship between player and organization starting as a lie. Unfortunately, there is a disconnect between what “should be” and what “can be.” In an age when so much of our personal lives are digitalized, it is becoming increasingly harder to regulate certain practices. The line between “right” and “wrong” is becoming increasingly blurred. One might make a persuasive argument that no team administrator can actively spy on a player by staking out near his house; the argument becomes less clear-cut when he tries to argue that no team administrator can look at a player’s personal Facebook page.
The trend will not be slowing down anytime soon, either. Even employers now check prospective employees through Facebook and Myspace; some college admissions officers check prospective students on those same sites.
The world of Internet sharing is becoming larger and larger. Not only are there more networking sites, but it also is becoming much easier for anyone to take — and send — a photo or video on the fly.
No matter who is capturing and posting the material, snippets of these athletes’ personal lives are reaching the outside world. Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford came under fire when a picture surfaced on the Internet of him holding a keg over his head when he was just 18. Redskins tight end Chris Cooley caught heat last year when he accidentally posted a picture of his own genitals on his blog. A few Miami Hurricanes were scrutinized and criticized when they made a degrading rap that, though meant to be private, was stolen from a computer and leaked to the public.
And so you can see that these issues of invasion into athletes’ lives need not be restricted to Facebook or Myspace. It can come from an iPhone, digital camera, cell phone, audio recording or personal blog.
Regardless of whether it is “right” or “wrong” for teams to probe into Facebook accounts — or for random people to post pictures and audio of certain private acts — training athletes to accommodate this environment should be the standard. Just as they are forced to learn the playbook, they should be forced to think about how they represent themselves to the outside world — particularly on the Internet. Considering how NFL teams now are privy to this rapidly growing cyber world, prospects would be wise to be as concerned about what’s on their Facebook profiles as they are concerned about their time on the 40-yard dash.
If they don’t, it could be costly come draft day.
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