Privacy

I frequently post on a website devoted to small college basketball, and in a post last night made mention that a player in a game I attended unexpectedly did not play. Today I received two messages, nearly simultaneous and entirely independent of one another, informing me that the player missed the game because he had received a significant medical diagnosis, and that he was therefore likely to miss more playing time, perhaps the entire season.

These notes, from well-intentioned people, have raised a number of ethical issues that I have yet to resolve.

The fact that the player in question will be out of action is unquestionably the public's business. Sporting events, even those of the small-college variety, become little more than vigorous exercise periods without fan support, and that takes publicity. The fans have a right, and a need, to know certain basic information, and that includes who is and is not available to play now and in the foreseeable future.

But I can't think of any reason why I need to know the reason he's not playing. I can think of any number of reasons a player could miss six weeks of college action. He could have a knee injury, he could have failed a class, he could have lost favor with the coach for a variety of reasons, or he could be ill. Whether any of these are true, or if the truth lies elsewhere, is extraneous to the only information to which I have a right: that he's out indefinitely.

Personal medical information is routinely spread about athletes, and I've never been quite comfortable about it. I'm even less comfortable when it's information about a 22-year-old student, one who will leave athletics behind him and join the "real world" in a few months. In the "real world," there's an ocean of difference between a knee injury and a dread disease. Suppose he applies for a job, and the prospective employer is a sports fan who, in that capacity, has learned of our subject's illness. Might she be less likely to extend a job offer to someone whose future health may be uncertain? Congress thought so when they passed employment anti-discrimination laws that prevent employers from asking applicants about such matters. Those laws also prevent employers from sharing medical information about their employees, but those laws don't seem to apply to sports organizations, or to colleges for that matter.

Just to complicate matters, one of the reports I received came from the parent of a player who found out from the stricken athlete himself. Leaving aside the veracity concerns that arise in such games of "telephone," does the athlete forfeit whatever privacy rights he may have had by having told a colleague? Assuming that he was aware that in so doing he was probably letting the cat out of the bag, can I infer that he wants people to know? That he'd rather have people know he's sick than make uninformed guesses about his grades or standing with the coach? Even if that's the case, does that give me the right to shout the story through my megaphone? I think the answer is clear; clear enough that I won't even publish the specifics in this blog, which is read only by friends, relatives, and spambots.

But it's not without effort on my part. I like being the source, the authority in my little corner of the sports world. The fact that I heard this story from two sources simultaneously, neither of whom has any good reason to be in possession of the information, suggests to me that the rumor is spreading like wildfire, and no good reporter wants to be caught behind the fireline. The temptation to grab the microphone and interrupt this program with a special news bulletin is nearly overwhelming. I want to be sympathetic and understanding and wish him well, but to do so in the most public forum I have at my disposal is really just a form of self-aggrandizement; the fact that it's based on private, personal information I shouldn't have possession of and have no right to share just makes it that much worse--and at the same time more tempting.

So I'll allow the story to go no further than my inbox, and in this sleepy corner of the internet merely will express my hope that the young man is able to thoroughly overcome his difficulties.