Time for NCAA to Ban Facebook?

facebook-200gvs070109Virtually every college athlete in the country is on Facebook now. This makes sense, it’s hard not to be on Facebook if you’re under 35, impossible if you’re under 25. But Facebook has become a public relations minefield for major athletic programs across the country.

Whether it’s players being kicked out of school for making a threat in their status message (Wake Forest), posting racist comments about the newly elected President (Texas), setting off an internet firestorm over whether or not you actually posted messages on another person’s wall (Georgia) or just having your idiotic responses to quizzes posted all over for others to enjoy (Michigan).

This is just the tip of the Facebook iceberg, every program is in danger at every moment of every day. All of this attention and all of this danger raises an intriguing question: Is it time for athletic departments to ban their athletes from having social media profiles on Facebook, MySpace, and the like?

Is this possible? Read all the details.