FanHouse Facebook

Everyone is on Facebook (even FanHouse -- become a fan, holmes!) My older family members, old high-school teachers, everyone. It's just a fact of life.

Here's another fact of life: if you write something on your Facebook page, it's possible for everyone to see it. Texas lineman Buck Burnette learned this the hard way. And now, so has Dan Leone, a former employee of the Philadelphia Eagles, who was recently fired for referring to the team as "retarted" (though he presumably meant "retarded") in his Facebook status.

Jim Tartt made a bad choice that will probably get him kicked off of the Florida football team (ironically, this was discovered -- I believe -- by Spencer Hall, a Florida Gator fan, presumably because he's friends with all the Gators, and then used for blogging purposes) when he recently joined a group on Facebook entitled "Africa Gives Nothing to the World but AIDS."

That is, in the words of Gob Bluth, "a huge mistake." And, as Spencer pointed out, hopefully (although unlikely) Tartt just did what I usually do whenever I have 4,000 friend requests (daily) and 10,000 other things that people want me to join: plow through the list by just slamming "Accept" on each one.

But that seems a touch unlikely; obviously there's a far greater chance that Tartt either a) meant this as a "humorous" way to display his raw emotional dislike of a particular continent or b) just doesn't get exactly what joining this group means in terms of a public statement.

So, again, athletes: stop doing stupid things on Facebook.

For those that don't know, Facebook status updates are broadcast to everyone you know. So, if you're going to post something that sounds racist or bigoted, well, don't.

Texas Longhorn lineman Buck Burnette learned this the hard way. See, here was Buck's Facebook status following Barack Obama's win the presidential election:

"all the hunters gather up, we have a #$%&er in the whitehouse"

Geez, Buck. Even if you actually feel that way -- which is sad -- why not just keep it to yourself? You know, instead of telling five million people. But he didn't, and naturally, he is now paying the price; he's been kicked off the UT football team.

On the very tiny bright side, Burnette at least claims to be somewhat remorseful and not racist, issuing the following apology:

The only way Canadian gossip blogger Zack Taylor could rip off Perez Hilton more is if he gained 300 pounds and started worshiping Amy Winehouse. That said, Taylor and his "Is This Happening?" blog are the source for the most scandalous of scandals in hockey today: Sexually provocative cell phone photos of Toronto Maple Leafs rookie Jiri Tlusty that range from homosexually inclined to full-frontal self portrait.

Will Leitch over on Deadspin wrote about Tlusty's reaction to the pictures last week, in which he denied being gay or bi-sexual; Outsports.com was critical of Taylor's gossip site for "playing the gay card" for hits. Today, the story broke wide open in the MSM after Tlusty and the Leafs issued a formal statement last night. It was front page news in The Toronto Sun, where columnist Steve Simmons had this update:

The photos have since been removed from the website after Morse threatened legal action, but they still appear online in other places. Other photos, including one of Tlusty sticking his tongue out close to a male friend, are still on the isthishappening.com website. According to a number of sources, Tlusty took numerous photos of himself, posted them on his Facebook website and actually e-mailed a full-frontal nude photo of himself to a woman he met online.

The Jiri Tlusty (NBA tattoo nickname: "T-Lusty") friendly "tongue" shot is here. Some creative searching will turn up the explicit material on sites that haven't been legally forced to take the photo down; Google at your own risk. So does this scandal make Tlusty the Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy or the Vanessa Hudgens of "High School Musical" for the NHL? And wouldn't you love some cell phone coverage of Darcy Tucker holding today's paper in one hand and T-Lusty's neck in the other? Oh, that's right: The Leafs won't allow digital video in their locker room, out of fear that an embarrassing nude shot may end up on the Web. Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes...

The odd ethics of recruiting in the internet age hit Facebook as Penn State requests the removal of a group dedicated to Pennsylvania quarterback Terrelle Pryor, the nation's #1 recruit for 2008:

John Bove, [Penn State's coordinator, told the creators of the group, "Terrelle Pryor, Come be a Nittany Lion!!!" that they needed to shut the group down to avoid potential NCAA recruiting violations. The reason the group had to be taken down, Bove said, is because recruitment is heavily monitored. Hazi and Baradziej, he added, are not permissible recruiters.

Since Penn State demanded the removal of the group it's not guilty of any NCAA violations, but... uh... it's still there:



After the jump, a complicating factor.

We'd say we saw something like this coming back in December when we warned USC players to quit screwing around on the internets and start focusing on beating UCLA. All over the papers this morning is the story of the Facebook foibles of a handful of USC football players.

According to the Los Angeles Times, an inappropriate nickname for a Special Teams unit got its members in hot water when backup linebacker Clay Matthews Jr. turned it into a Facebook group called "White Nation" which included teammates Dallas Sartz, David Buehler and Brian Cushing.

Matthews, reached Thursday, said he used "poor judgment" in posting the page and that he "can totally see how it could be taken out of context."

He called it "a joke within the team" that should never have been made public because "it's misconstrued." The junior linebacker said he rooms with an African American, is "not a racist" and regrets posting anything about "White Nation" on the Web.

It is certainly not the first thing that has been posted on the internet with regrets.