It's not like Gavin Dickey needed any reassurance, but his decision to give up football to concentrate on baseball proved to a wise choice.

Dickey, a former two-sport standout at Lincoln High who enjoyed a breakout season for the Florida Gators, has signed with the Seattle Mariners. Dickey was selected in the 12th round (351st overall) by the Mariners in Major League Baseball's amateur draft two weeks ago.

"I am excited, ready to get going," Dickey said.

Dickey, a record-setting quarterback at Lincoln who signed a football scholarship at UF in 2002, walked away from football in December after playing mainly in a reserve role during his career. The redshirt junior enjoyed a breakout baseball season, leading the Gators in hitting at .304.

Dickey also belted a career-high 11 home runs and shared the team lead with 18 multi-hit games. Dickey, an outfielder, also put together a career-high 11-game hitting streak this season. He helped the Gators advance to the College World Series in 2005, losing to the Texas Longhorns in the championship round.

Dickey, who is returning to Tallahassee from Gainesville tonight, is scheduled to leave Saturday for Everett, Wash., home of the Mariners' short-season team.

Florida's Joakim Noah was thrust into the national sports scene during the Gators' march to the national basketball title. Noah is like many other college students. He has a site on MySpace.com.

The site has a photo of Noah celebrating the national title, with messages from friends and fans. It also has an invitation from a female fan to look her up on her own personal page some time.

That's the kind of scary information that is now out there on MySpace.com and Facebook.com, Web sites that have become incredibly popular among high school and college students. The sites list information such as hometowns, dates of birth and parents' names.

Most college coaches spend at least a portion of their time trying to shield their athletes from outside influences that could prove problematic. But that challenge just got harder with sites like these. Adding to the concern is that some athletes are a little too generous with their information and a little too bold in what kind of material they put on the sites.

It's gotten so precarious that coaches throughout the country are meeting with athletes to warn them to be careful. If they aren't, the results can be harmful.

Typical of how bad things can get in a hurry were details of a hazing incident involving the Northwestern soccer team. Information and graphic photos were obtained off personal Web pages and spread nationally almost overnight.

"(Miami) coach (Larry) Coker came and talked to us about it and facebook a couple of months ago," said Estero High graduate and Hurricanes offensive tackle Derrick Morse. "He said, 'If you guys have pictures or any information that would bring harm to you or your school, you don't want to put that image out. Be careful of what you want on it.'

"I never thought of it like that."

Some college administrators have already started the process of making it clear to athletes how deadly the personal sites can become.

LSU athletic director Skip Bertman talked to all Tigers' athletes about his concerns over the personal sites.

"Those sites are dangerous," Bertman said at the recent Southeastern Conference spring meetings in Destin. "When you go to the teams and talk to them and say, 'Look, corporate people will look at this stuff. You've posted everything about yourself. You could get nailed. Maybe not today but after you're successful. You can have your identity stolen because all that stuff is on there. Boy, were you stupid.'

"Then (the athletes) say, 'Wow,' and just take it off. The coaches and athletic directors have a responsibility to go to every team and tell them to get off there. I've done that."

Bertman did some research on his own and immediately contacted some of the LSU athletes about information they were putting on their sites.

"They zipped it right off," Bertman said. "It was hard to believe some of the stuff that was on there. It wasn't good.

"Student-athletes have to be better than the average student. If they're holding a beer on MySpace.com, that's much more dangerous than if a guy in the band or in the school of journalism is holding one."

Georgia is among the other schools that have administrators watching MySpace.com and Facebook.com. Bulldogs football coach Mark Richt said that athletes have already been told to "yank if off there" when they see something that disturbs them on a personal site.

It's just another worry to coaches. But it's one they realize they have to address.

"Once it's on the Internet, it's the God-awful truth, whether it is or not," Vanderbilt football coach Bobby Johnson said. "I talk to our players about it every day. We don't have a policy. We've just told them to try and be smart. We actually monitor some Web sites to see what's on there. But you can't look at everything."

Morse said he knows that a few of his Miami teammates have home pages on the Internet. He personally said he is careful.

"I made a little page,'' Morse said. "The main picture comes up and you can click my little puppy, my friends from high school and lots of cousins I don't see all the time.

"It's a good way to meet people, like people I don't know real well in my class. They looked me up, too. I got to study with a girl for a finance test, little things like that."

Some college coaches are checking out the sites that a recruit has, to gain an even better feel about the athlete's personality.

"That's something we're looking at more and more," Alabama football coach Mike Shula said. "It's information that's out there and you'd be wise to take a look."

Former Florida women's basketball coach Carol Ross, who's now at Mississippi, makes it clear to her athletes how she feels about the sites, which are considered to be useful for social networking by today's Internet-savvy youth.

"My rule is if you don't want your momma to read it, you better get it off there," Ross said.

Florida football coach Urban Meyer said he planned to discuss the issue with his players before the start of fall practices.

"I hear the horror stories," Meyer said. "It's a concern. There's only so much you can control."

Students can post pictures and personal information as they see fit on the Web sites. The concern among coaches is where this could be leading. Not only may athletes reveal information to the public and media that coaches want kept private but it can also lead to starting some dangerous relationships.

Sports agents, for example, could start monitoring such sites and use them in attempts to contact athletes, which could bring the NCAA a whole new headache. Then there are the fans, such as the one who contacted Noah, hinting that they are interested in more than just an autograph.

"Most of it is innocent — kids being kids," Ross said. "But I think they need to rethink some of the things they are putting out there. Sometimes, things get out of hand, and they don't even realize it, and it goes beyond innocent. Things could end up on there that could haunt you for a long time."

The Florida Gators took a significant step in easing the depth issue at one woefully thin position for the 2007 Wednesday night. With Tim Tebow the only scholarship quarterback returning for 2007, the Gators are looking to sign at least two quarterbacks in this recruiting class. They got a verbal commitment from a standout from a California junior college when Bryan Waggener of Citrus College told Gator Country that he's coming to Gainesville.