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ESTERO — YourSpace?

If you’re a collegiate athlete, not so much.

You’ve seen the disturbing Internet images, read the curious text.

Most recent has been the brouhaha over photos on a blog of Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen and two other underage players posing in matching garb with drained glasses at what has been purported to be an evening of “Beer Olympics.” A South Bend Tribune columnist dubbed the situation “Plastic Cup-gate” and coach Charlie Weis has been blitzed even more than Clausen because of his dismissive attitude about it.

This time last year, former Arkansas guard Patrick Beverley wrote on his MySpace page, “I’m leaving,” leading to speculation in two states that he was going to follow former Razorbacks coach Stan Heath to South Florida. It seemed credible enough that The Tampa Tribune followed up on it. The next day, Beverley posted: “Tough decision.” He stayed in Fayetteville, but has since been dismissed from Arkansas.

About the same time, two 19-year-old Iowa football players were seen on Facebook clinging to money and liquor bottles.

Programs like Colorado, LSU and Northwestern have disciplined athletes because of controversial images of them dancing through cyberspace. Some have even lost scholarships.

With their athletes under cyberscopes, especially since the inception of social networking Web sites like MySpace (founded in 2003) and Facebook (2004), most schools have implemented Internet policies to police their athletes.

That includes Florida Gulf Coast University, which specifically addresses MySpace (it notched its 100 millionth account in 2006) and Facebook (123.9 million visitors last May) in its athlete orientations and handbooks. They are strongly advised to leave details off their pages and told to conduct themselves as representatives of the school. Coaches are to monitor their athletes’ pages and determine what is and is not proper.

FGCU’s fellow Atlantic Sun Conference schools also have addressed the issue. At Stetson, athletes are advised to “use caution,” during mandatory meetings, but nothing is mentioned in the handbooks. Same thing at Lipscomb. At East Tennessee State, athletes sign “behavior agreements,” and Web site use falls under that category. At Jacksonville University, the rules are spelled out on the compliance portion of Dolphins’ handbooks. At Belmont, athletes are warned in handbook form about the dangers of posting personal information and it is pointed out that they are “ambassadors” of the university. Obscene content on MySpace or Facebook by any student there is seen as a violation of the student code of conduct.

“It’s certainly important for us to monitor those things,” said FGCU athletic director Carl McAloose. “Certainly it’s the individual person’s Web site, those accounts. But they reflect on the institution, there’s no question about that. Every year we have this conversation that they’re not only representing themselves and their team, but the whole university. So we expect them to keep their page clean, not put anything on there that would disrespect the university.

“We certainly don’t want pictures of them partying or anything.”

FGCU women’s basketball coach Karl Smesko said some college athletes can be a bit naive on the matter.

“They act like they’re having private conversations, but often it’s posted in a public manner,” Smesko said. “When people have access to it, it makes it public. We try to get them to understand they represent the university, and we’re not trying to forbid them from using these sites and services, but you have to act responsibly. And they need to understand even if you take measures to keep it private, there are still ways for people to get that information.”

Safety of the athletes is the top priority.

“They don’t want to put up their addresses, cell phone numbers and that sort of thing,” McAloose said. “That can be pretty dangerous.”

Smesko said several years back he learned some of his players had posted their dorm addresses and photos on their MySpace and Facebook pages.

“I thought that was a situation where you may not want for anybody who’s browsing the Internet to know where you live,” Smesko said.

As with many athletic departments, FGCU covers Web site conduct in orientation meetings. FGCU athletes must make their domains “public” or add their coaches as “friends” to their MySpace or Facebook sites, allowing coaches to view the content. It’s still difficult to keep up.

“It’s tough with a small staff to monitor that,” McAloose said. “Things can change overnight that we don’t see. But I think our coaches do a good job with that.”

McAloose said there have been no major issues at FGCU with MySpace and Facebook thus far, but some athletes have been asked to delete somewhat dicey items from their accounts. They have done so willingly.

“We have actually done that on occasion,” McAloose said. “Not often. We haven’t had much issue with it as of yet — just one or two times a coach told me they asked a student-athlete to change it and they have.”

There’s more to this for athletic departments than policing their own athletes. A big concern, McAloose said, is FGCU athletes popping up on other MySpace, Facebook or blog sites.

“It seems like everyone in the world is providing their own reality entertainment through the Internet,” Smesko said. “They’re their own programing directors. You have to realize if you do something, you may be starring on someone else’s site.”

FGCU men’s basketball coach Dave Balza said he’s learning this on the run, which is why his youngest assistant, Nick Bennett, is in charge of monitoring his players’ MySpace and Facebook activities.

“Communication for this generation is so different,” Balza said. “(MySpace and Facebook activities are) a natural part of what they do. But for most of us coaches, it’s not something we deal with. Fortunately, Nick’s got a real good feel for it.”

Balza said he hasn’t had any major concerns, but like Smesko, he has had players remove pictures from their MySpace or Facebook sites.

He said the Clausen issue has brought caution back to the forefront.

“The guys have to understand they’re representing the program and the university regardless of where they are or in what format,” Balza said. “They need to understand that it needs to be appropriate. You have to bring in kids you trust and tell ’em what’s expected and what’s not.”

McAloose said his coaches scan the MySpace and Facebook sites when evaluating recruits. They have stopped pursuing some because of things they’ve seen. And FGCU stresses that the scrutiny could last well beyond graduation for FGCU athletes.

“It definitely impacts them while they’re here, and it probably impacts them when they get out of school too — can affect their job opportunities,” McAloose said. “So we try to educate them as much as possible on that.”

The American Civil Liberties Union has become interested in the policies of universities in dealing with this. Some believe it is discriminatory to single out athletes on campuses when other students are not monitored or held accountable for postings. McAloose is not among them.

“Student-athletes are held to a little higher standard because they are representing the institution and not just themselves,” he said. “The typical student out there is probably representing the institution, but not quite as much as the student-athlete — their names are in the paper every day and they’re wearing ‘FGCU’ across their shirts.

“So I think there’s a bit of a difference there.”

___

FGCU social networking Web site policy for athletes

“As an athletics department we have great concern about the use of Facebook.com, MySpace.com and other similar sites. Our concern is mostly with the personal information that is provided on these sites, such as home addresses, residence hall apartment numbers, cell phone numbers, etc. You may think that only your friends can read this information but it is available to university officials, professors, parents, coaches, future employers, as well as local and national media. In addition, we are concerned about your personal safety. A number of assault cases have been directly attributable to these web sites.

“Make sure your personal page is clean. You are representing the athletics department and this University. If the content of your page doesn’t reflect positively you will be asked to remove it. We have the right to protect our reputation and we would hope you would want to protect your personal reputation as well. The coaches will be monitoring these sites so do not block them from viewing. Coaches will make individual determinations on sanctions for inappropriate content on these sites.”