The internet is forever.

When I got into marketing -- specifically social media -- my boss always said, "the internet is forever."

"Well, no," I used to tell him, "it's not forever. Things can be erased/deleted/recalled/removed/whatever you want to call it."

"But," he would argue, "if someone's already seen it before you delete it, the damage is already done."

I had to agree with him on that point. So, yes, sometimes the internet is forever. Just like those words you said and wish with all your heart you could take back.

There are things I wish I hadn't done in my life. Things I wish I'd never said. Trust me, if I could take back all the times I secretly flicked off my parents or told them I hated them when I didn't get my way... (Wow, being a teenager really sucked, didn't it?)

We've all got a list of things we wish we could take back. If only real life -- I mean talking and acting in the real world -- was as easy as the internet. If only we could go back and press delete or recall or untag and be able to purport that there's no evidence to prove we did whatever we did wrong! Wouldn't life be so much easier? No, officer, I wasn't speeding. I wasn't even driving down that road. Look back...see? Nothing there. I never even left my house.

Recently, I'm ashamed to say, I fought fire with fire. Even I know that's rarely, if ever, a mature option. But when I found some unsavory, if not illicit, pictures of my girls on the world's largest social networking site, I was furious. I could've just texted the culprits. It would've been the end of it! Quietly and calmly; it would've been over. But, no. I put out a mass notice on the same social networking site, warning everyone to rid themselves (and the internet) of such evidence before the season officially started in February. I thought it would help displace the blame, so that everyone thought I was speaking to the general public and so that no one knew I was speaking to only a specific few; I hoped the select few to whom I was speaking would realize it and make things right. I figured it was like that time in college that some of my teammates were caught skipping class and we were all forced to run for hours as punishment. Hours, not minutes. Run, not jog. No exaggeration there. We all knew someone(s) skipped class, but we weren't told who and it didn't even matter because a team loses as a team.

Anyway, I had such good intentions with my mass post. I hoped girls would look back at their pictures and reassess them. I hoped parents would take interest in what their daughters were posting online. Was that so wrong?

I'm not exactly sure what happened...

I got a message from a father on my team asking if my notice was about his daughter. It wasn't and I reassured him of that. He's a good dad that does his due diligence online to make sure his daughter stays out of trouble. Not all my parents do that. Not all parents (good or bad) can do that. Let's be honest with ourselves: the internet is like a wildfire in California; if you don't live in California (which we don't) and don't watch the news, you may never know that it happens. Regardless, it reeks havoc on a lot of lives.

I'm not sure how it spread, really. I know that not all of my girls or parents "stalk" me online and some of them have so many "friends" online that my post would've just been buried in a seemingly endless feed of status updates. I imagine, though, that one of my more responsible girls saw the post and started looking around -- then started texting. I hope with all my heart that's not how it happened, though. I never wanted to pin one girl against another. I never wanted one teammate to harbor ill feelings towards another. But, knowing 16-year-old girls, this is how I imagine it happened. And I deeply, deeply, with all my heart, hope that parents aren't chatting between one another, saying, "Did you see what so-and-so's daughter posted online?"

I brought an incredible amount of unnecessary attention to a very, very sore subject. I really can't do anything about it right now while we're not in session, but I can't have those pictures sticking in the back of parents' or girls' minds. I can just hear it now, "But what about when [that one girl] posted those pictures online? You didn't do anything then..."

The pictures are almost gone; and I've been promised that the remaining few will be removed as soon as possible; I've also been promised that this will never happen again from those culprits. Still, I wish I could take back my public notice. I don't want all of my girls (and their parents) to feel like they're at fault. And I really, really don't want our team to become divided by a few girls' stupid decisions. But I can't take it back because two parents have already "liked" that notice. If I took it back now, it wouldn't matter. The damage is already done; everyone (or at least some people) already know that someone screwed up.

Sometimes, throughout the course of today, I wondered, "does it really hurt to scare a few innocent bystanders in the hopes of catching a few wrongdoers?" Let me reassure you, however, I'm not out to become MacArthur. And I'm certainly not open to the idea of opening fire on a crowd in hopes of hitting a criminal or two.

I was wrong. I screwed up. I apologize. But I do hope that everyone took (or takes) a second look at their online content and reassessed it. The internet is forever, after all. Be careful what you post, who you let post about you and who you let access it all.