Local athletes told to stay off Facebook.com

KENT -- You?ve probably heard all the warnings for teenagers using the popular website MySpace.

Well now, a local university is warning about a similar website for college students.

On college campuses, it?s as popular as the backpack. In fact two thirds of all college students are doing it - logging on to a website called ?Facebook.?

?It?s fun to talk to people with your Facebook, your friends, your teammates,? said student athlete Jennifer Biondo.

The student athletes at Kent State admit it?s all the rage. All you need is an approved college e-mail and you can create a profile.

?You get to meet a lot of people a lot of other athletes and it?s so much easier to get to know people around here,? said student athlete Amanda St. John.

But the athletic department fears there are some people their athletes should not be ?getting to know.?

?In this day and age, there?s enough weirdoes out there that we thought we should take a good hard look at it,? explained Kent State Athletic Director Laing Kennedy.

This comes especially after a female athlete received ?inappropriate and disturbing? phone calls after putting too much information on Facebook.

And it wasn?t hard for us to find hundreds of profiles from Kent State Students, listing everything from phone numbers, dorms, addresses, boyfriends, even sexual orientation.

Athletic Director Kennedy says his athletes even receive taunting messages from opposing teams, getting into areas of racial and sexual taunting.

But students say finding personal information on athletes isn?t hard. It?s available in media guides and on school websites.

These athletes say they?d hate to give up Facebook, but admit, there won?t be much of a ?face-off? if they?re told to log-off.

?We can?t argue with our coach,? one student said.

Several athletic departments have already banned their athletes from using Facebook, including Kentucky, Baylor and Florida State.

Kent State plans to develop some sort of policy by the end of the month.