so i wonder about what is okay....

Not bad, but may I suggest you post in song form from now on?

To address your original thought though:

For me it's a real life vs internet thing. By that I mean I try not to do things on the net that I wouldn't be comfortable doing in real life. Any off color joke I make here or on Uniscorn I'd be comfortable having associated with me in real life, and anytime I call someone out I expect the same. To that end, I wouldn't be comfortable approaching athletes I don't know personally in real life. Braylon frequents the place where I work now, and Chris Perry and multiple Bengals frequented a place I worked in Cinci. I just find it rude to intrude on their daily lives, celebrity or not.

This becomes even weirder when you start thinking about the fact recruits are 16-17-18 years old. Obsessing over Scout, Rivals, or reading every article here on MGo is one thing. Posting on their Facebook wall is just a tad on the creepy side- especially the older you get.

The bottom line is that recruiting is an extension of the team, and with the new staff true freshmen will get a chance to come in and compete and be relevant much sooner than under Lloyd. It's fun to know these guys, but have a little perspective people.

As for the WR debate, with the sets we'll be running and the pace we'll be running plays, you'll often need eight guys healthy and rested and able to perform. And with the slot and outside WRs, you have two completely different positions. Often times, people are lumping them all together.

Yeah the part about the WRs is spot on.

I think the tricky thing about "The Line" is that it's all relative to the person that is or is not crossing it. NO ONE necessarily thinks they're crossing the line when they think they're doing it for a good reason.

Hell, Michael Jackson didn't THINK he was crossing the line when he invited-- aww, you get the idea.

Either way, the line is a bit blurry, and depending on where you stand on the issue it might be a bit blurrier to you than others. I think Ninja hit the nail on the head when he brought up the issue of RESPECT. For High School guys. Or better yet, try to imagine what they think of you when you're hanging out at their high school practices trying to get a signature... and even more importantly, what do they think of MICHIGAN as a result of your behavior?

Google is an acceptable way to follow a recruit, as is this site and recruiting sites.

Becoming friends with a kid on Myspace or Facebook, in my opinion, crosses the line. This might sound calloused, but I don't care about a kid's personal life - I care about his ability to play football.

Now, that doesn't mean that I don't care about things like Elliott Mealer's situation. That situation is tragic and I hope he ends up having a great career at Michigan. But as for what music a kid likes or what his girlfriend looks like, that's a little crazy.

Long ago I posted in the diaries about the inherent creepiness of Facebooking athletes and the difference between merely friending them, in a relatively harmless new-age trading card sort of way, and actually attempting to engage them in digital conversation.

This thread presents an excellent opportunity for me to share something with all of you. I am not Facebook friends with current high school student Ricardo Miller, because I am of the opinion that such a practice is extremely fucking creepy.

However, I will admit to being friends with someone who did choose to friend Miller on Facebook, and he showed me a wall post left on Miller's by a CMU student:

"eh meng, you about to tear it up at the real u?"

Okay. Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I'm too conservative when it comes to the digital age and the ubiquitous access that we have to some people. But that just freaks me out. Did he actually type "hey man" in an accent? Why? Did he think that using onomatopoeic ghetto slang would make Miller more likely to respond? What goes through a person's mind when they decide to type that?

None of this is an actual answer to the OP's question, but this is a shining example of what I consider "crossing the line." Actually, this is more like "storming the line and lacing it with mines."

For me, it is when you sift through their three day old garbage. Because it usually stinks. If you have been staked out at a kids house rambling through their garbage, go home and you can still smell the garbage under your fingernails...then, hell, you've gone to far.

IMO, the notion of looking up a guy's Facebook/Myspace/whatever account is stalkerish enough. Just go through the regular channels (this site; Rivals; Scout; other media outlets) to get your fix.