Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Sunlight

The Houston Independent School District backs off of it's ridiculous stance and agrees to release high school baseball players' statistics.

Interesting postscript to all of this, however, in that unlike the administrators who were quoted in the original piece as interested in protecting student privacy, the team's coach viewed the matter as one of competitive advantage:

He said he also thought Bellaire could lose its competitive advantage if other coaches had easy access to the statistics without having to attend games.

Manuel said he usually withholds statistics from the Houston Chronicle, which publishes information about the top players weekly, until mid-season.

"Halfway through the season, we feel like everybody has already seen us play," he said. "So there's no secrets."

One wonders if the original gatekeepers consulted the coach beforehand and simply concocted the student privacy argument as a sham. Seems silly, I suppose, but then again, high school baseball is serious stuff in Houston.

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