Does it have a right to such seemingly harmless info as the manifest for flights to road games? Do you care who gets complimentary tickets to games and how many? Should the public have details about summer jobs held by football players?
One newspaper thinks it, and you, should see it all (read the whole story here). The Columbus Post-Dispatch requested athletic department information from every Division 1 school. The results were a mixed bag.
A little over half the schools delivered, the rest ignored it. Half of those that complied censored flight manifests. Only 20% gave info on summer jobs.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty about certain schools:
- FSU was one of the universities that censored some information.- The Noles were one of the schools reporting an NCAA secondary violation for athletes who used their scholarship book money to buy supplies for friends.
- Florida blacked out info about NCAA violations involving football and basketball, but was forthcoming about other sports.
- Some schools avoided providing information by charging prices for it that the newspaper was unwilling to pay. Maryland put a price tag of more than $35,000 to cough up the dirt.
What the Post-Dispatch is challenging is a 35-year old federal law (FERPA) that protects the privacy of students from kindergarten through grad school. The paper believes major schools are using it to "keep their NCAA violations secret."
The issue is too complicated to dive into here, but check out the law and the story. See if you think it's juicy enough to be the media's next body slam of college football or just a clever way to sell newspapers.
You saw what I said in the comments to that article.
Posted by: Bill From Tampa | June 09, 2009 at 07:17 PM