Since the dawn of the Internet era, one often-ignored sound has reverberated louder than the pop of shoulder pads and the crack of broken bats – the click of a mouse.

With instant access to an array of information now at the touch of a button, college coaches and sports fans no longer find themselves confined to just box scores and magazine back issues in order to keep tabs on their teams.

But with increased assets also comes greater accountability, and the Internet is one controversial medium that has changed the face of the sporting world forever.

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Because while the World Wide Web gives out-of-town fans the ability to hear play-by-play broadcasts and view up-to-the-minute scores and highlights of their beloved alma maters, it also serves as an amalgamation of inaccurate information.

“A lot of times you really can’t tell whether or not what you’re reading is believable,” said SIU fan and student Ben Blacker, a junior in architecture. “There’s a lot of cool things you can do and find on the Internet, but unless it’s on an official website it’s probably best to take it with a grain of salt.”

SIU men’s basketball head coach Matt Painter echoed the sentiments of the 20-year-old Mahomet native, saying fans and coaches should exercise caution when browsing online.

“The Internet can be very useful because it offers so much information,” he said. “But it’s important to stay away from message boards and things that are strictly opinion-based.”

As is the case with many of Painter’s peers, Northwestern football head coach Randy Walker has found the boom in computer technology to be a double-edged sword.

Now, instead of splicing together 16-millimeter tapes to compile scouting reports, all Walker has to do is press a few buttons and a slew of various formations and game sequences emerge on his screen.

“If I want to see what Kansas does in their blitz package in the red zone, I hit a button, and there it is,” Walker told the Indianapolis Star. “I think technology is a beautiful thing.”

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But for all the advancements the Internet has brought his profession, Walker still remains wary of some of the information circulating online.

“There’s just no accountability on the Internet, and that’s what bothers me the most,” Walker said. “Anybody, it seems, can put something on the Internet, write it somewhere, and there can be no factual basis for what they write.”

Contrary to Walker’s conflicted opinion, Painter, who spends up to two hours a day researching players and teams via the Internet, said he prefers to remain optimistic about the state of online accuracy.

“It’s not really the Internet that you’re using; it’s the information on there, and that’s what you have to be able to evaluate,” he said. “You really have to look carefully at who it is that’s giving out the information that you’re using. You get out of it what you want to get out of it.”

In addition to often providing controversial data, the Internet has also changed the realm of recruiting in intercollegiate athletics. The advent of e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms and web sites in recent years has forced the NCAA to reconsider its recruiting regulations.

One rule that has been a subject of recent inquiry is the NCAA bylaw that prohibits a university’s athletic boosters from making contact with recruits via telephone or other electronic transmission. Under the current rule, electronic interaction through the use of instant messenger programs such as MSN, Yahoo and AOL is considered a telephone call and is not permitted.

But despite the uncertainty that can surface from using the Internet as a recruiting tool, Painter said he sees it as a vital device that allows him to evaluate prospective players.

“There’s so much information available, and it really gives you a chance to find out about a player that may have slipped through the cracks,” Painter said. “It also helps you keep a leg up on opponents by allowing you the opportunity to see what players are on their watch lists.”

Browsing online newspaper articles relating to upcoming opponents is also a viable research method employed by Painter and his staff, and one that he said often provides added incentive for his players.

“Sometimes looking at articles about other teams can give you what we call ‘locker room material’ that can really fire your team up,” Painter said. “If an opposing player slips up and says something negative about your team, you can really use that to your advantage.”

While coaches like Painter are reaping the benefits offered by the influx of Internet scouting and recruiting, some fans still remain skeptical. One area of concern for fans is online news sources can often amplify the scrutiny already placed on coaches’ and players’ off-field transgressions.

A recent example is when former Iowa State men’s basketball head coach Larry Eustachy was unceremoniously forced to resign last May after a photo depicting the 47-year-old carousing with University of Missouri students began appearing on a number of web sites.

Eustachy’s resignation also came hot on the heels of freshly-hired Alabama head football coach Mike Price’s dismissal for his behavior in a Pensacola, Fla., topless bar – an event that captured headlines on numerous websites following the firing.

For Blacker, who said he followed each of the scandals closely online, the intense Internet coverage extended to Eustachy and Price was overblown and unwarranted.

“Sometimes it would be nice if you pulled up a web page and didn’t see a picture of a coach who was in trouble for this or that,” he said. “It’s bad enough that that’s all that’s shown on the news, but since the Internet is updated more often, it seems like every few minutes someone else is putting in their two cents.”

But for all its flaws, the Internet is here to stay, and for some, it would be near impossible to imagine a world without it.

“We use it so much that it’s kind of hard to try and sit back and say, ‘Well what did we do before this? Painter said.

Reporter Andy Horonzy can be reached at [email protected]