[76lsjumb]

Note that law was passed in 1966, 76lsjumb. Can you cite me a single instance in the past 57 years in which legal action was pursued against a coach for disclosing the nature of an athlete's injury or illness? Stanford, in fact, routinely made these disclosures until just a few years ago. (Who can forger Tara's revelation that Cori Enghusen knocked herself out of the lineup by stepping on a pumpkin?)

Moreover, it is absolutely inconceivable to me that the law prevents coaches from discussing something that happened in a game or in a practice that led to an injury. Whatever happened to Josh Nunes in practice was undoubtedly witnessed by scores of people. Nunes cannot possibly have any legal expectation of privacy under such circumstances.

And you're correct that the rumors arising from Stanford's ostentatious displays of secrecy are not the coaches' problems. They are the athletes' problems as the public imagination of their behavior turns grotesque.

It's one thing when a player's leg gets twisted like a pretzel during a nationally-televised game and everyone sees what happened.  It's quite another when, hypothetically, a player complains of shortness of breath during practice, sees the doctor at Stanford Med Center, and gets diagnosed with a previously unknown, underlying medical condition and nobody but the doctor and the player know ... unless and until the player consents to having that information released to whomever.  Sure, over the years we have learned of many situations [Trent Edwards travails come to mind, for example].  But not always.  Perhaps the reason that legal action hasn't been pursued [and I'm just accepting your premise on that; I haven't actually checked] is that, in the those situations where we have learned details, the player has granted consent for that information to be released.

After all, if a Stanford student-athlete is concerned that the "public's imagination" is turning "grotesque," I'm confident that he/she is sufficiently intelligent to figure out a way to get a statement to the media that his/her ingrown toe-nail is simply an in-grown toenail and not some condition worse than even anything Gregory House managed to diagnose and cure.

In fact, based on your journalism experience, perhaps you can explain why it is that reporters always write:  "When asked, the coach declined to elaborate on the nature of Player X's condition,"  while I can't seem to recall any instances of: "So, then I asked Player X 'What's really wrong with you?' and Player X replied "None of your business.'"  Otherwise put, how come reporters apparently don't ask the player directly what the problem is?  It seems to me that, if Player X didn't care about the details being shared and, indeed, was concerned that people's imaginations were running wild, he/she would be only too happy to provide the information directly to the reporter.

[As for math and fact-checking, I am only too happy to leave those duties to Yvonne, to whose expertise in that regard I gladly defer.]

[76lsjumb]

Note that law was passed in 1966, 76lsjumb. Can you cite me a single instance in the past 57 years in which legal action was pursued against a coach for disclosing the nature of an athlete's injury or illness? Stanford, in fact, routinely made these disclosures until just a few years ago. (Who can forger Tara's revelation that Cori Enghusen knocked herself out of the lineup by stepping on a pumpkin?)

Moreover, it is absolutely inconceivable to me that the law prevents coaches from discussing something that happened in a game or in a practice that led to an injury. Whatever happened to Josh Nunes in practice was undoubtedly witnessed by scores of people. Nunes cannot possibly have any legal expectation of privacy under such circumstances.

And you're correct that the rumors arising from Stanford's ostentatious displays of secrecy are not the coaches' problems. They are the athletes' problems as the public imagination of their behavior turns grotesque.

It's one thing when a player's leg gets twisted like a pretzel during a nationally-televised game and everyone sees what happened.  It's quite another when, hypothetically, a player complains of shortness of breath during practice, sees the doctor at Stanford Med Center, and gets diagnosed with a previously unknown, underlying medical condition and nobody but the doctor and the player know ... unless and until the player consents to having that information released to whomever.  Sure, over the years we have learned of many situations [Trent Edwards travails come to mind, for example].  But not always.  Perhaps the reason that legal action hasn't been pursued [and I'm just accepting your premise on that; I haven't actually checked] is that, in the those situations where we have learned details, the player has granted consent for that information to be released.

After all, if a Stanford student-athlete is concerned that the "public's imagination" is turning "grotesque," I'm confident that he/she is sufficiently intelligent to figure out a way to get a statement to the media that his/her ingrown toe-nail is simply an in-grown toenail and not some condition worse than even anything Gregory House managed to diagnose and cure.

In fact, based on your journalism experience, perhaps you can explain why it is that reporters always write:  "When asked, the coach declined to elaborate on the nature of Player X's condition,"  while I can't seem to recall any instances of: "So, then I asked Player X 'What's really wrong with you?' and Player X replied "None of your business.'"  Otherwise put, how come reporters apparently don't ask the player directly what the problem is?  It seems to me that, if Player X didn't care about the details being shared and, indeed, was concerned that people's imaginations were running wild, he/she would be only too happy to provide the information directly to the reporter.

[As for math and fact-checking, I am only too happy to leave those duties to Yvonne, to whose expertise in that regard I gladly defer.]