Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Faces Pressure to Open Up

The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA), a 114-year old institution that sanctions high school athletics and runs post-season state championship tournaments, is coming under pressure to open up and abide by state open government laws.

A proposed law is moving through the state Assembly that would prohibit school districts from belonging to an interscholastic athletic association unless the association abides by state open records and meetings laws. The measure would force the WIAA to either grant access or lose members.

The WIAA maintains it is a private organization and not subject to state open records laws.

For more on the dispute between the WIAA and a local judge and longtime track official that lead to the proposed legislation, click here.

Records Show Who Wanted to be the New USF Football Coach

The Tampa Tribune filed a public records request to find out who applied for the University of South Florida head football coach position after the university dismissed former coach Jim Leavitt.

Although Skip Holtz got the job, records show that the university received materials from coaches all over the country who were interested in the position, but not from Holtz.

Click here to find out who applied for the spot.

Proposed Law Would Force Wisconsin's Athletic Association to Comply with Open Government Laws

The Green Bay Press Gazette reports that a proposed bill before Wisconsin's Assembly would prevent public schools from joining athletic associations unless the organizations adhere to state open records and open meetings laws.

Read more about it here and an editorial here.

Tackling Open Records on the Gridiron

Sports Illustrated's Andy Staples is trying to collect the weekly ballots of the 51 public school coaches who vote in the USA Today Coaches Poll. Last spring, the American Football Coaches Association ruled to keep the poll private starting in 2010. The Birmingham News writes:

"The idea is to promote transparency in a poll that makes up one-third of the Bowl Championship Series formula. With help from transparent Harris Poll ballots and computer rankings, the BCS formula determines who plays for the national championship and helps place other teams in multi-million dollar bowl games."

Ge the story here.

Columbus Dispatch finds different interpretations of FERPA

Inside Higher Ed highlighted The Columbus Dispatch's investigation that uncovered widely different interpretations of FERPA by athletics programs. The newspaper sent public records requests for athletic-related documents to all 119 in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Several programs used the vague law to deny or redact parts of records that were unrelated to students' academic records. Check to see how open your favorite athletic program was here.

A six-month investigation by The Columbus Dispatch has found that colleges and universities use "wildly different legal interpretations" of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act to deny access to information about athletics programs. The newspaper sent colleges with big-time athletics programs similar requests for information and found wide variation in what institutions provided, with FERPA commonly cited to avoid providing information commonly released by other institutions. Even within the same state, the newspaper found inconsistent interpretations. The newspaper also interviewed James Buckley, the one-time U.S. senator who wrote the law, and found that he was "stunned" at the way athletics programs are citing the measure to keep information secret.

More here.

Records indicate other UK athletes tested positive for banned substances

FOI at Work!
The Herald-Leader obtained records under the Open Records Act that show the number of UK athletes who have tested positive for banned substances in the past few years. Jeremy Jarmon has been the "most prominent," but another UK athlete was dismissed in the latter part of 2008 and another was penalized for testing positive for marijuana (first offense). The school did not release the names or the teams of those who tested positive in the school's internal testing. (Jarmon tested positive in an NCAA random test). At UK, 13 athletes during the 2006-07 year and 10 during the 2005-06 year tested positive for marijuana.

Jeremy Jarmon was not the first University of Kentucky athlete whose career was cut short because of a positive test for a banned substance. But he's certainly one of the most prominent.

One UK athlete was dismissed from a team between July and December of 2008 after a positive test for marijuana. A second athlete who tested positive for marijuana was simply penalized because it was a first offense, according to records of internal testing at UK Athletics that the Herald-Leader obtained under the Open Records Act.

The records UK provided were from the school's internal testing, not from the NCAA. Jarmon came up positive in a random test conducted by the NCAA. The substance was not disclosed.

More here.

A "Borderline Preposterous" Denial

Jacksonville State University has refused a newspaper’s request for athletic-department records less than a year after the state attorney general’s office said a request for copies of coaches’ contracts should be granted.

The Anniston Star has been seeking the results of the school’s athletic department drug-testing program since April 2007 to review its effectiveness. But the university has denied the request each time, saying it would compromise the identity of student-athletes who tested positive.

Birmingham attorney Gilbert Johnston, who handles public-records law cases, said JSU’s assertion is “borderline preposterous.”

University President William Meehan referred all questions on the issue to the school’s attorney, Randy Woodrow of Anniston. He has said disclosure of the records could be a violation of federal laws governing medical privacy.

The Star has amended its requests to more general terms to ensure individuals could not be identified, but the school says the sample size would still make it easy to identify individual athletes.

“We understand and appreciate the university’s need to protect medical privacy of these student-athletes,” Star Editor Bob Davis said in a Feb. 20 story. “We believe the public has a right to know about drug testing conducted by the athletic department of a public university using public funds.”

More here.