[81alum]

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on the disclosure issue.  But as a professor I have been cautioned many times that FERPA is very strict about university employees sharing private information about students.  We cannot even put a grade in an email unless the university has a privacy contract with the email provider.  I've always wondered how coaches could get away with sharing medical information about student athletes given FERPA.  In fact, once FERPA enforcement began to ramp up about a decade ago I noticed a pulling back of such information.  The coaches at our WBB "Chalk Talks" stopped giving out much of any specific information about injuries, for example, and it may have had more to do with the legal advice they were given rather than some secretive desire of Tara to conceal the status of her athletes prior to games.

How all of this plays into the debate currently going on in this thread, I am not sure, but I suspect coaches are now legally limited in what they can say unless the student-athlete signs some kind of FERPA waiver.  What is and is not disclosed may not be a matter of choice by coaches.

[81alum]

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other on the disclosure issue.  But as a professor I have been cautioned many times that FERPA is very strict about university employees sharing private information about students.  We cannot even put a grade in an email unless the university has a privacy contract with the email provider.  I've always wondered how coaches could get away with sharing medical information about student athletes given FERPA.  In fact, once FERPA enforcement began to ramp up about a decade ago I noticed a pulling back of such information.  The coaches at our WBB "Chalk Talks" stopped giving out much of any specific information about injuries, for example, and it may have had more to do with the legal advice they were given rather than some secretive desire of Tara to conceal the status of her athletes prior to games.

How all of this plays into the debate currently going on in this thread, I am not sure, but I suspect coaches are now legally limited in what they can say unless the student-athlete signs some kind of FERPA waiver.  What is and is not disclosed may not be a matter of choice by coaches.