Last week, head football coach Gary Patterson closed his team’s practices to the public for the remainder of the season. He closed practices to the public because a fan on an online message board posted information about injuries and other team specifics that the coaching staff would rather have kept out of the public eye.Though this may not be the most popular thing Patterson has ever done, let’s step back for a minute to assess the issue.

First off, this most likely never would have happened if that fan had not decided to abuse his or her privilege to attend the practices. As with many privileges in our lives, those who abuse the freedom to go somewhere are punished or lose the freedom altogether.

Furthermore, why should practices have to be open to the public anyway? It’s not exactly out of the realm of probability that having too many random people show up at practice could serve to only distract the players.

Sure, there’s the argument that nobody will know what’s going on if the practices aren’t open. But why does everyone need to know everything? And besides, the media can still attend practices, so anything important will be published right here in the Skiff.

This move works out best for everyone. You can still get information, and family members of players are spared the shock of unexpected bad news.