The LSU Athletic Department administration recently increased measures to inform staff members of public records laws. Athletic Director Skip Bertman for the first time discussed potential repercussions of e-mails to new coaches at a mid-August staff meeting, said Senior Associate Athletic Director Herb Vincent. Bertman’s emphasis was a follow-up from a PowerPoint slideshow Vincent presented late this past spring detailing how staff e-mails may be subject to Louisiana public records laws. Vincent said staff members needed to be more aware since some Athletic Department e-mails became public after former women’s basketball coach PokeyChatman’s resignation. Various media outlets, including The Daily Reveille, requested and published e-mails among parties involved in the situation. “I think [Chatman’s resignation] raised everyone’s awareness of public records,” Vincent said. “We probably got more public records requests during that period than ever before.” Vincent said he compiled his slideshow with the help of lawyer Lloyd Lunceford from the Taylor, Porter, Brooks & Phillips firm. The slide show outlined a basic definition of what is included in public records, such as travel records, reports, letters, e-mails, company cell and office phone records, or text messages that any member of a public body – such as LSU – uses in the scope of his or her duty. “Be smart about who you call from your office and cell phone,” Vincent wrote in the summary slide. “Be smart about who you send text messages [to]. Don’t put anything in an e-mail you don’t want to see in the newspaper.” Vincent said he encourages coaches to deal with “private business” on private e-mail accounts different from the University-provided lsu.edu accounts. He said private business may include personal financial records, a note to a spouse or instructions about picking up children from school. The slide show also presented examples from the University of Arkansas, where head football coach Houston Nutt’s phone and text message records were requested and made public earlier this year. He was soon the subject of rampant Internet gossip about his interest in another head coaching position and an alleged affair with a television anchor. Senior Associate Athletic Director Mark Ewing said he was surprised that a random Arkansas fan could request and obtain such information. “The Houston Nutt situation opened my eyes a little bit more than what I saw here [with the Chatman situation],” Ewing said. “It was unbelievable.” Ewing said he saw firsthand the impact of public records requests when he watched his coworkers step aside while lawyers collected data from their computers. He said the Athletic Department should annually remind staff members of potential correspondence consequences. “For the people that weren’t as cautious with what they sent out in e-mails, it probably scared them more than me,” he said. LSU volleyball coach Fran Flory said she’s long been aware of public records laws. Flory coached at the University of Kentucky in the early 1990s and said Kentucky staff members informed her of appropriate e-mail behavior as soon as she was hired. “They made that very, very clear,” she said. Flory said she missed Vincent’s presentation in the spring but agrees that the administration should make employees more aware of public records laws. “My theory is, I would never write anything that I wouldn’t want to be copied to somebody else,” she said. “I think that the Internet has the potential to help a lot and to hurt a lot. If you pay attention to what you’re doing, you won’t get yourself in trouble.”
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