UNR Scores Off the Court

The local newspaper here in Reno has published a profile of University of Nevada, Reno basketball player Dario Hunt which starts with a discussion of the blog that he contributes to, living.life.fearless.

The interesting thing for me about the profile is that even though Hunt plays for a NCAA Division I school, UNR -- unlike other some schools -- has not stopped him from having his own blog. Indeed, UNR basketball coach David Carter is quoted in the article, although he talks about Hunt's athletic prowess, not the blog.

As I wrote last year, several top-tier NCAA schools have adopted policies barring athletes from commenting about their games and teams on social media, while others have adopted a ban on social media for at least some athletes, either during the season or entirely. As I wrote, such bans by public universities are of dubious legality, although schools may restrict athletes' insubordinate comments about coaches or teammates.

I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of college sports, but it's good to know that I work for an institution that doesn't overstep its bounds by attempting to control the speech of its athletes.