Iowa athletes must clean up act online

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Staff report | Friday, May 9, 2008 7:55 PM CDT | () comments

University of Iowa athletes are being told to clean up their act.

Embarrassed by the discovery of photos of underage Hawkeyes waving bottles of alcohol, using inappropriate language and holding wads of cash on their public social-networking Web sites, Iowa will require its athletes to remove any undesirable material or face disciplinary measures.

The university’s Presidential Committee on Athletics approved a policy Thursday that will designate an athletics department administrator to randomly monitor sites such as MySpace and Facebook for public pages created by all Iowa athletes.

Hawkeyes athletes will be required to sign off on the policy before they are allowed to compete, which gives the athletic department the right to investigate sites and take action when violations are found.

Under the policy, the posting of obscene gestures, partial or total nudity, hazing, the use of illegal drugs and underage consumption of alcohol could lead to disciplinary action. Disciplinary measures will follow penalties outlined in the existing student-athlete code of conduct.

The policy approved applies only to public portions of the sites.