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"Pierce — whose name has been changed due to his fear of retaliation from the coaches — said he battled two bulging discs..."
Why would a reporter give lip service to anonymity and then uniquely identify the individual requesting anonymity? I'm assuming that the coaches are very aware of any member of the team that "battled two bulging discs". So the only possible purpose by the reporter for using the "fear of retaliation" phrase is pejorative.
The Stanford Daily article's title is "Former men’s rowers allege..." but the article.doesn't indicate whether the 3 anonymized sources are former or current rowers. The article indicates the Daily interviewed 8 former members of the team and states "Current team members did not respond to requests for comment."
But then the article indicates two sources requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation by the coaches, but as best I read this article, those two sources are not currently on the team. I'm left wondering what kind of retaliation the coaches could exert. (A casual reader might think these are currently on the team which would then be a mechanism of retaliation.)
