For high school athletes these days, what happens in South Padre — or the suburbs, for that matter — doesn’t necessarily stay there.
That’s because the effects of the Internet age — or, more specifically, a camera phone and a Facebook account — have trickled into Chicago area high school athletic departments recently. Behavioral miscues of high school athletes have been caught on camera, broadcast on social networking Internet sites and often printed and dropped anonymously on principals’ desks.
Since 2005, incidents involving disciplinary action of athletes because of Web photos have been reported at Glenbard East, Hinsdale Central, Schaumburg, Andrew, Loyola, York and, most recently, Oak Park, where as many as seven athletes were suspended because digital photos of them at a party where alcohol was served were e-mailed to school administrators. Such situations are raising awareness of athletic codes of conduct and how they pertain to new technologies.
“Everybody is walking around with a camera in their pockets,” Vernon Hills athletic director Brian McDonald said. “If a kid is doing something illegal and a photo is taken, all of a sudden people are in trouble. That’s how technology is impacting us.”
Internet-related conduct issues come up several times a year, according to many area administrators. Oak Park Principal Don Vogel said the recent suspensions were not the first this year for his athletes. The Illinois Athletic Directors Association conference in May even held a mini-session titled “What Athletic Administrators Need To Know About Myspace.com and Facebook.com.”
Andrew athletic director Rich Piatchek doesn’t see the problem waning, so the question becomes how far athletic departments should take their codes of conduct. Athletic directors could consider inserting Internet-specific clauses in their codes, adjusting policies on anonymous Web photos and determining the statute of limitations of photos.
“It’s a major issue, a huge concern for our school and these kids in this day and age,” Oak Park athletic director John Stelzer said. “In a lot of ways, I sympathize and empathize with student-athletes, because they’re not aware of what’s going on.”
These issues came to a head this year not only at Oak Park but also at York, where about a dozen student-athletes, including several starting football players, were disciplined in September because of anonymous photos of parties given to Principal Diana Smith.
Incriminating photos
If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what’s an anonymous Web photo of student-athletes and alcohol worth? According to the most recent interpretations of the York and Oak Park athletic codes of conduct, it could be suspension from 20 percent of an athletic season or more.
Both codes state that student-athletes should not only abstain from drinking alcohol but also from attending student parties where alcohol is served to minors. Similar policies exist in other area schools, including those of Consolidated High School District 230 (Sandburg, Andrew and Stagg), Indian Prairie School District 204 (Neuqua Valley and Waubonsie Valley) and Township High School District 214 (Buffalo Grove, Elk Grove, Hersey, Prospect, Rolling Meadows and Wheeling). Some codes don’t specify punishment for attending a party with illegal activity, and some take a middle ground, including lesser punishment for self-reporting code violations within a specified period.
When Smith received photos of York athletes and alcohol, which she and athletic director Rob Wagner said appeared to be printed from a Web site such as Facebook, the school investigated, though it was unclear when the photos had been taken and who had sent them. When the investigation resulted in the suspension of athletes from the homecoming game, student protests ensued.
The timing and anonymity of the photos resulted in “a huge ordeal,” said York volleyball player Betsy Malone. Rumors circulated that administrators had punished students for simply holding cups or had obtained the photos by trickery over Facebook. Though Smith denied such rumors in a letter to students and parents, some students protested by throwing red plastic cups at the homecoming game.
“I think people were upset that the pictures were sent anonymously,” York senior offensive lineman Neal Deiters said. “They had no one to blame, and in situations like that, you want someone to blame. It almost ruined our homecoming.”
Motivation key
The Oak Park suspensions have caused less of a fuss, but the timing and motives behind sending such photos have been debated in both camps. With camera phones and social Web sites making it increasingly easy to document strangers’ lives, parents and students can’t help but wonder if the photos are sent for the students’ safety or the sender’s benefit.
“What is the motive behind it?” Wagner said. “It could be your own teammate. It could be a jealous parent. It could be a member of the team we’re playing this week. We’re not looking to get anyone in trouble. But it’s a huge liability if we let that go. It’s a safety issue.”
Most administrators say they have yet to come across a digitally altered picture used to incriminate a student, but they don’t rule out the possibility. If a person has a motive to send a photo, there also might be a motive to doctor the photo.
“It raises a new area of concern as administrators because of the advances in digital technology,” Smith said.
“To what extent can we rely on them? It does make us talk: Should we have a policy where we don’t accept anonymous photos? We do [accept them] right now.”
One of Vogel’s concerns is determining the value of punishing an action that might have taken place months earlier.
“Some of the photos we received are clearly from the summer and year before,” Vogel said.
“I’m a firm believer that consequences are only as good as their timeliness.”
York athletes Malone and Deiters were quick to point out that students caught in photos with alcohol shouldn’t have put themselves in that position. But Deiters also wondered about the possibility of doing the proper thing and still getting punished.
“In my case, I’m not going to even be at that party or hold that cup where it would be possible [to get a photo],” Deiters said. “If you walk into a party and realize alcohol is there, you turn and leave as soon as you realize it’s there.
“But if you did leave and you’re still suspended, it’s kind of like being punished for being there and doing the right thing. How can you tell who did leave? Who do you trust?”
Gabrielle Cole, a junior forward on the Oak Park girls basketball team, agreed that it’s complicated to punish athletes for simply being at a party where illegal activity occurs.
Cole said the code “is strict, but at this age, [drinking alcohol] is illegal. If it’s illegal by law, the school should enforce it. To a certain extent, you’re not supposed to be there. But I also understand that you can get in certain situations where you didn’t know — if you’re at a party and drinks come out or somebody brought drugs and you didn’t know about it. The school should show discretion. I don’t think there should be a litmus test.”
Most athletic directors said disciplinary action had been taken only after a complete investigation.
And though questions might surround anonymous photos, administrators are careful to say they don’t ignore illegal behavior shown in the photo. Alcohol use is still the main problem, not the photos showing it, Smith said.
“We can’t always deal with a person’s motive,” McDonald said. “It doesn’t matter who sent it to you.
“If I have a picture of someone drinking a beer and he’s 15, that’s a problem.”
Internet clauses
Some schools hope awareness will prevent students from getting to that point. McDonald’s District 128, which grabbed national headlines in 2006 when an Internet clause was added to its athletic code of conduct.
The clause reads: “Maintaining or being identified on a blog site which depicts illegal or inappropriate behavior will be considered a violation of this code.”
Other schools and districts have adopted similar policies, including District 214.
“More than anything, it has raised the student awareness that the Internet is not private and anyone can access it and see it,” said Briant Kelly, athletic director at Libertyville, a District 128 school.
“When MySpace and Facebook started, student-athletes didn’t understand that this was not private. This wasn’t just them and their friends. Anyone in the world could see what they thought was private info.”
Opponents of the clause when it was adopted expressed concern that students’ privacy was being invaded. But some administrators say that because athletics are a privilege, they are comfortable disciplining disruptive behavior recorded on the Internet, though most don’t actively seek the evidence.
“As far as surfing the net, we’re not doing that,” Piatchek said. “There’s too much space out there. And anyway, I’m not sure that’s where our goal is in education, policing everything our kids do. That’s the parents’ responsibility.”
Just how much responsibility falls on students, parents and schools is still being determined.
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ckane@tribune.com
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