Bowling Green State University football coach Gregg Brandon took one look at the Facebook.com Internet photos of his scantily clad players having a little too much fun in a hot tub and knew what to do next. Sprints.

“I made them run until they puked,” he said.

At Ohio State, women’s gymnastics coach Carey Fagen heard similar rumblings about her athletes on the Web site that has become popular with college students. She spent a morning on Facebook.com and was not amused.

“Ninety-nine percent had something I considered to be inappropriate, whether it be alcohol-related, language or inappropriate dress,” Fagen said.

She called a team meeting and said the athletes had until the next morning to clean up their Web page profiles or they were not going on the next trip.

Brandon and Fagen reacted the way many parents, teachers and coaches have as they catch up with what their kids are posting on the social-networking sites Facebook.com and MySpace.com. Some adults come away horrified that students reveal personal information and photos and then boast about inappropriate and even illegal behavior.

In the college sports world, there’s more at stake: the image of the university, the reputation and safety of the athlete and even potential NCAA violations. College athletic departments are just beginning to deal with the issue. Athletes on many teams have to sign a code of conduct for on and off the field, including Web sites. Most high schools are further behind.

Students on the sites frequently admit to using drugs, getting drunk, beating people up and stealing. Profanity is a second language, and many students include the N-word and F-word on their pages.

Some users list the age at which they lost their virginity; others list their sexual orientation.

There’s an enormous gap between what adults and youths consider appropriate to share on the Internet.

Ohio State’s Fagen said she was shocked at the amount of personal information – such as cell phone numbers and dorm room numbers – her gymnasts posted, along with photos of themselves in sports bras.

“That’s asking for trouble,” she said.

OSU gymnast Kaylan Clevinger said she and other women were warned of a possible stalker who was using Facebook to communicate with and track down athletes.

“The main problem is college students don’t want to think like adults, but adulthood is knocking on the door,” Clevinger said.

Recent postings by college athletes have administrators and coaches on edge. Photos of Northwestern University women’s soccer players in their underwear performing lap dances resulted in player suspensions. Louisiana State swimmers who posted negative comments about their coaches on Facebook were kicked off the team this year.

The University of Kentucky plans to tell the NCAA about a possible violation committed by Internet users who may be UK fans. They tried to influence a potential men’s basketball recruit by posting messages on his MySpace page encouraging him to choose UK, according to the Courier-Journal in Louisville.

Loyola University of Chicago has banned its athletes from using Facebook and warned them they could lose their scholarships if they do. Ohio State’s Fagen said she wouldn’t be surprised if OSU eventually takes the same stance. Kent State University announced this spring it also would ban the sites, but it later backed off. Now, Kent State athletes may post, but they must limit access to their sites to people they know – and grant access to Kent State coaches and administrators.

Stemming the tide could prove difficult. A study of freshmen at the University of North Carolina said 94 percent had profiles on Facebook. Doctoral candidate Fred Stutzman, the study author, said he hoped other colleges did not restrict the site for athletes.

“It’s too bad, because these kids, especially these blue-chip athletes who are on the road all the time, they’re sort of people without a place,” Stutzman said. “They’re 18-year-olds like anyone else, and we treat them like they’re more than that, and they’re facing the same problems that normal students share, like “How do I make friends and find people that are cool with me?’

“Facebook sort of lets people know who you are and what you’re about.”

Bowling Green’s Brandon took a proactive approach. He said that after making his players run sprints, he realized he could be doing that forever and never untangle the issue. So, he joined up. He created his own Facebook profile on which he encourages students to become his Internet friends. To promote his goal of getting 10,000 students to every home game, he also helped create two Facebook groups for fans, one of which has more than 3,300 members. Brandon also monitors his players’ sites.

What is becoming the standard approach at larger universities is to develop a policy that focuses on educating athletes about what is appropriate online, monitoring their sites and possibly imposing penalties for improper postings.

Ohio State has told its coaches they are responsible for monitoring their players’ Web pages and keeping them clean, and athletes are told not to block coaches from their sites.

“I’m surprised with the stuff people put out for public consumption – people lying out drunk and nothing on but their underwear,” said Miechelle Willis, OSU’s associate athletic director for student services. “I don’t understand why they don’t get that it is a public forum.

“We have a right to protect our image, and that’s not an image for Ohio State or our athletes we want to portray.”