UM to remain mum on athlete injuries, will not release weekly injury report

Teams are usually pretty hush-hush on injuries to players, but the University of Montana Athletic Department will no longer provide any information on the injury status of athletes because of federal and state privacy laws.

“(Legal counsel) has told us to follow the rules established by state and federal policy and that’s what we’re doing,” UM Athletic Director Jim O’Day said. “We were told by legal counsel not to release any information and we are just protecting ourselves that way. If they said it was OK, we will go with whatever our legal counsel says.”

O’Day said the school had been looking into the matter last year but finally decided to do it because of all the effort being put into finding out who’s injured and who’s not.

“When we asked legal counsel, ‘What is our obligation?’ the answer was, ‘You’re not supposed to be saying anything.  You’re not supposed to be telling what part of the body was injured, whatever,’” O’Day said.

UM Legal Counsel David Aronofsky said federal and state statutes mandate that students give consent before their medical records can be made public. He said it would be OK for the University to ask the students if it would be alright to release their medical information, but they couldn’t force them to do anything.

O’Day said he thinks this policy will become a trend with other universities around the country.

“I think you are going to see more and more people that are going to be abiding by this,” he said.  “Until such a time as the laws are altered or changed, people are going to start doing more of this.”

In-state rival Montana State has a much different and open policy regarding injuries. MSU Sports Information Director Bill Lamberty said the MSU football team, for example, releases a preliminary injury report on Sunday afternoon and a more official one on Monday. A gameday injury report is released prior to the game, as well.

Lamberty conceded that a change is always possible.

“We don’t have a plan to change it, but its constantly under review,” he said.

It may seem that UM is trying to treat its student athletes’ injuries like a matter of national security, but Aronofsky said that is not the case.

“We’re not trying to hide anything,” Aronofsky said.  “We just want to protect the students’ rights.”