By Rachel Bachman, The Oregonian
In the summer of 2001, a man called Karissa Moreland to say he was starting an East Coast sports magazine and wanted to interview her.
The man said he was working on a story comparing high school gymnastics with club gymnastics and called Moreland, a gymnast at Oregon State, because she had competed in both.
"In the beginning, I thought it was real, and I thought it was really cool," Moreland said. "I was like, 'Yeah, I'll be in a big magazine article. Of course.' "
Then came the red flags. The man called weekly. A few times, he said he would be passing through on business and suggested Moreland meet him at a Thai restaurant in Corvallis for an interview. She declined. When the man kept calling, sometimes detailing his sexual fantasies, she hung up.
Moreland now says she thinks the man got help in finding her from a short biography published in the Oregon State gymnastics media guide and posted on the school's athletic Web site. The man had called her parents in Vancouver, who were mentioned in the biography, gave them his story and persuaded them to give him Moreland's unlisted Corvallis phone number, she said.
Eventually, the man's calls stopped, but OSU's athlete biographies remained intact. Until now.
Acting on concerns about stalkers, identity thieves and other suspicious characters, Oregon State has pulled birth dates and middle names from media guides and its athletic Web site. For the same reasons, the athletic departments of at least two other universities also are pulling athletes' personal information from public view.
Steve Fenk, OSU's sports information director, said the Beavers one day might go further.
"I can see this coming to a point where we don't put any mug shots on the Web site, particularly for female athletes," he said.
Yet, with the amount of personal information accessible elsewhere on the Internet, some people wonder whether keeping birth dates and middle names out of player biographies will succeed in slowing criminals.
Certainly, the Beavers have as much reason as anyone to guard athletes' privacy.
Moreland's experience prompted her parents to call the FBI, but the case stalled. (According to a 2002 story in the San Francisco Chronicle, police could not charge a man who posed as a reporter to a University of Dayton volleyball player because he had not committed a crime.)
Later, the Oregon State Police's campus office recommended that the Beavers omit birth dates from player biographies. The police cited prevention of identity theft, which increased 33 percent last year to a reported 214,905 cases nationally, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
And in June, a person of interest in the May 24 disappearance of Brooke Wilberger was accused of taking 11 pairs of a female OSU swimmer's underwear from the same Corvallis apartment complex where Wilberger last was seen. Shortly thereafter, Oregon State officials removed swimmers' photos from the school's athletic Web site.
"There's a lot of reasons why we recommended that they (remove birth dates from publications)," said Lt. Phil Zerzan of the Oregon State Police. "Identity theft certainly is one of them. But also we're concerned about people, as athletes become more high-profile, getting information that they normally wouldn't have access to."
Oregon State has company in changing its policies.
The University of Florida is pulling athletes' birth dates, middle names and parents' names off its athletic Web site but will leave the items in media guides, said Steve McClain, the school's assistant athletic director for sports information. McClain said the policy resulted in part from advice from campus police.
Florida also no longer publishes travel itineraries, which included the names and locations of hotels where teams planned to stay on the road.
The University of Miami did not include players' birth dates, middle names or parents' names in its current football media guide, and officials are reviewing policies about the Hurricanes' other team media guides. Ross Bjork, Miami's associate athletic director for external operations, said a few of the school's female athletes have been stalked in recent years.
"Protecting the player is the primary interest here," Bjork said.
Years ago, media guides were parking-ticket-sized booklets with upcoming schedules, player photos and team records. A college printed a few hundred copies and gave them to reporters.
Today's media guides are glossy, picture-packed tomes designed to woo recruits, bolster boosters and provide an instant window to a school's sports programs via the Internet. As a result, player biographies originally written for teams' close followers now are worldwide broadcasts of an athlete's hometown, hobbies -- even her history as homecoming queen.
But it is difficult to tell whether widespread access to such information leads to treacherous activity. And there is high demand among media members and fans for details about popular athletes.
Several Pacific-10 Conference sports information directors, after hearing of Oregon State's decision, said they would review their policies but anticipated keeping their athletes' biographies intact.
Steve Snapp, sports information director at Ohio State, also said he planned to keep personal information in the Buckeyes' media guides and online biographies.
"A lot of parents simply enjoy having their names in there," Snapp said. "If we have a media guy who wants to know the name of a player's mom or dad, or if he wants to know the birth date of a player, it's certainly easier to use that as a quick reference than it is to call me every time."
Barry Tompkins, a play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports, said he has little time from week to week to familiarize himself with the players in a game he is calling. Schools' player biographies are a huge help, he said, offering nuggets such as whether a player has a birthday on game day or is related to Mike Tyson.
Any reduction in information would complicate his preparation, he said, especially in games such as the football Civil War, which he has called the past two years.
"A game like that, you just can't make a mistake," Tompkins said.
Hal Cowan, Oregon State's sports information director from 1979 until his retirement last year, said he would have opposed omitting birth dates or other information from biographies. He argued that information available elsewhere on the Internet dwarfs what Oregon State releases.
"The media guide is just a small thing in the ocean," Cowan said.
Indeed, through easily accessed public records a would-be thief could learn about everything from the property a person owns to his DMV record, Portland Police Sgt. Brian Schmautz said.
Although Schmautz praised Oregon State's efforts to protect athletes, he said the most common ways identity thieves get information are by Dumpster diving, stealing wallets or taking mail. He added that identity theft usually happens to lesser-known people than athletes.
"You probably wouldn't recognize most people when they give a credit card," Schmautz said. "But it would be much different for somebody to say, 'I'm Joey Harrington,' than, 'I'm John Smith.' "
No one knows whether removing personal information from college athletic sites and publications will help protect athletes. After all, there were stalkers and frauds before the Internet.
"There's still going to be weirdos, and they're still going to find a way to get ahold of an athlete if they want to," said Moreland, the gymnast. But she added, "When it comes down to it, safety's more important."