Cyber Network Causes New Worries

Members of the first-year women’s soccer team have cancelled their accounts on social networking sites, such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com, because of a policy implemented by head coach Erica Walsh.

Walsh asked the 21 members of the team to cancel their accounts during the first week of preseason training.

The policy comes on the heels of the suspension last May of the Northwestern University’s women’s soccer team after photos of the team that included alcohol, partial nudity, and sexual acts circulated online.

Last season, while serving as an assistant coach at Florida State University, Walsh said her senior co-captain sat out the first game of the season against the top-ranked team in the country after incriminating photographs of the athlete appeared on Facebook.com. The athlete had never used the website.

“It just showed that not only can these things hurt you, but they’re out of your control,” Walsh said. “When I told that story to the girls, they understood the risks they would be facing.”

Team members said they were adjusting to the change by finding other ways to share information.

“We’re finding other ways to communicate, like getting back to AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) more,” freshman Christina L. L. Hagner ’10 said.

Erin M. Wylie ’09, a sophomore, said the sacrifice was worth it.

“We don’t want to put our team at risk or have any big distractions,” she said. “It’s rough, but at least we’re getting more studying done.”

Other teams at Harvard and in the Ivy League are choosing more moderate solutions. Sue Caples, head coach of the field hockey team, allows her players to use Facebook.com, but makes them attend hazing and alcohol education seminars beyond those events required for all Harvard athletes.

“We’re taking a stronger stance on addressing it than in past years,” Caples said. “I would be quite remiss if I didn’t attack the issue more aggressively.”

At Yale, women’s soccer head coach Rudolph Meredith has taken a different approach, allowing his athletes to use social networking sites but banning them from posting photographs on their accounts.

—Staff writer Emily W. Cunningham can be reached at ecunning@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Walter E. Howell can be reached at wehowell@fas.harvard.edu.