Facebook Craze

Last week, at the Heisman ceremony, the announcer made a joke (but a true joke) that none of the three candidate had real Facebook accounts. There’s nothing to stop others from setting up fake accounts in their names (though terms of service have rules against this, Facebook isn’t policed well). Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy, and Sam Bradford, however, don’t use Facebook.

Earlier this year, we saw how Facebook could get you into major trouble. Buck Burnette, a player from Texas, was kicked off the team after posting a racial slur on Facebook following the election of Barack Obama.

Today there’s more Facebook craze. Alabama’s Terrence Cody is at the center of this one – apparently, his gf was on his Facebook account and changed his updates to say “Terrence Cody is going pro.” The kid hasn’t submitted paperwork, but sources started speculating that he’d be a first-rounder, and messages/calls started coming to the Tide’s All-American defensive tackle. He’s made a statement saying that it isn’t true, but people will probably continue to speculate.

This happens all the time. Something that seems innocent on a personal webpage creates a frenzy. I mean, this is BCS Frenzy, but you have to draw the line somewhere, don’t you? Many coaches reportedly ask their players to refrain from using Facebook and MySpace altogether to prevent this king of thing.

And that sucks.

Listen, I understand that most college kids use Facebook to post pictures of themselves Binge drinking, but the site (and MySpace) have worth. For example, in college, I used to to contact people in my classes when I was sick. Otherwise, in a class where I didn’t know anyone and the professor was notoriously bad at answering emails, I wouldn’t have known what he had covered. I’ve also used Facebook to find old high school friends, share information about community events, and more.

It just sucks that college players have to treat social networking to delicately. It is a great resource that they’re missing out on. I think we all forget sometimes that these are kids in college, not celebrities…at least not yet.