William Brooks Quoted in Associated Press Story About College Football Injuries and Student-Athlete Privacy

August 16, 2018

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (August 17, 2018) — Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC partner William H. Brooks was quoted in a recent story by the Associated Press.

The article examined the current debate about requiring injury reports in college football. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision allowing states to legalize sports gambling has NCAA leaders analyzing whether it’s possible to have more medical transparency to prevent collusion, while still balancing student-athlete privacy concerns.

“The more specific you get [about a player’s injury], the greater the chance is that you will wander into an area that is protected by one or both of those statutes (HIPAA and FERPA),” said Brooks in the article. “Now, if someone gets hurt on the field in front of 90,000 people and you see what happened, then obviously everybody knows what the injury is. But coaches don’t elaborate on the treatment, how the player is doing other than he or she is progressing.”

The syndicated article published in numerous publications across the country, including The Washington Post, Miami Herald and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Brooks has been practicing law for nearly 30 years. He is a member of the firm’s NCAA Compliance and Investigations practice and has assisted a number of collegiate athletics departments around the country with infractions-related investigations. He recently represented the University of Hawaii, which successfully won its appeal of NCAA infractions in March 2017.