DJ Durkin/Maryland ...

Everybody involved in this should never be involved with college athletics ever again, from the AD to Durkin to the trainer to everybody else that was complicit. They systemically allowed a murder to happen.
 
Disturbing beyond belief, the timeline presented in the ESPN article brings into question why McNair didn't get medical help sooner which could have saved his life. I am just sickened by this.
 
Wonder if any of this behavior went on at Michigan while Durkin was there. Hard to believe he just happened to start doing it at Maryland recently. I bet it did in some capacity. These kids are victims, hope there aren't more that come out from past jobs and its isolated. Seems to be the way though nowadays and obviously nobody died in AA. But still, a guy doing all of this, some shit had to go down on some level there.
 
Needs to be fired and whoever ran the conditioning the day that kid died should probably go to jail
 
Disgusting.

Some of these coaches and especially the fitness coaches have severe psychological problems and the the kids pay the price.

And the sad part is there is no reason for it. Great coaches like Saban and Swinney and Bob Stoops don't do it (although Mike Stoops is a moron).

I hope to see Durkin and everyone on his staff involved in this charged with crimes and prosecuted and jailed. What a bunch of scumbags.
 
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What's even crazier is clearly the AD knew the extent of the complaints yet Durkin was still coaching this week? I don't understand why they don't get out in front of it, much easier to investigate or whatever during a leave and say sorry than the flipside, where the only reason action was taken was because someone got to the bottom of why a kid died and unearthed a ton of other issues. Who thinks that's not going to get out at some point these days?

Incompetence, despicable.
 
Just the last few years. Off the top of my head.

Penn st
Maryland
Ohio state
Michigan state

Institutional Rot. Higher learning. Forever jobs for the overpaid impressed with their unimportance
 
Johnnyonthespot said:
Why are so many schools in the Big 10 so dirty?
Click to expand...

I called for kicking PSU out. Why would anyone want to be associated with them? Feel the same way about Michigan St. The corruption is so deep and goes all the way through the administration. I don't see this one and Ohio St to those levels yet, but this one may be close.
 
This one is close.

Gary William's never seemed like a lover either. I dont think he would have been fun to play, unless Frank Martin is your idea of a good time.

How do they even play this season? Texas is going to crush this hapless bunch.
 
It would be hard not to be giant bullish on corn program now. You have a prodigy that is a normal dude, not faking till he makes it like this clown.
 
cubsker said:
I called for kicking PSU out. Why would anyone want to be associated with them? Feel the same way about Michigan St. The corruption is so deep and goes all the way through the administration. I don't see this one and Ohio St to those levels yet, but this one may be close.
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Move UM to West and Minnesota to East and we can rename the divisions. Those two are the oddballs in their respective divisions.
 
Johnnyonthespot said:
This one is close.

Gary William's never seemed like a lover either. I dont think he would have been fun to play, unless Frank Martin is your idea of a good time.

How do they even play this season? Texas is going to crush this hapless bunch.
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Not fair to bring up Gary in this conversation imo...he ran a clean program and followed the rules. He hated all the AAU influence that went with the recruiting part of the job, but there aren't many better coaches at taking B level talent and turning them into really fine players. I'm extremely disappointed with Durkin and feel like he should bear the responsibility here as this is his program! I really felt like he was on the right track for improving the program, and the recruiting was going well and the program was developing depth overall. This is a major setback, but I wouldn't describe this team as hapless. I'm not sure though that psychologically they will be able to get over the hump. The program seems to have a black cloud hanging over it, with all the bad luck injuries and now this debacle. I can't see a good outcome.
 
I defer to you to everything Maryland. I was just shooting from the hip.

Hapless was wrong adjective.i will stick with distracted but who is the leader now? How do they have any focus?
 
Johnnyonthespot said:
I defer to you to everything Maryland. I was just shooting from the hip.

Hapless was wrong adjective.i will stick with distracted but who is the leader now?
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Johnny, it's obviously a terrible situation and with the external review not scheduled to be completed until Sept 15th the program will be in the hands of Canada. I can't see Durkin surviving this, so his fate is just a matter of time imo. On a positive note, and they are hard to find right now, Phil Steele has MD OL ranked as 3rd best unit in BIG and Terps do have a nice running game. I felt like the program was coming along, but obviously now recruiting will go in the shitter again and leadership as you mentioned is a big issue. Canada has a great track record as a coordinator, and hopefully this will provide him with a deserved opportunity.
 
cubsker said:
I called for kicking PSU out. Why would anyone want to be associated with them? Feel the same way about Michigan St. The corruption is so deep and goes all the way through the administration. I don't see this one and Ohio St to those levels yet, but this one may be close.
Click to expand...
Ironically, the most innocent of all got the harshest penalty and the most guily of all has not had any penalties whatsoever. Now, that's disgusting.
 
Timh said:
Experts say Maryland may not have acted quickly enough to save football player https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...869fe70a721_story.html?utm_term=.d452b7d506d8
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The lack of action is outright criminal negligence. After Korey Stringer's death from the same thing several years ago, most programs drastically changed their care and preparedness for such an event. It's hot AF around the country in the summer and these guys are running wind sprints. This isn't the Chuck Knoll "no water for you" type of practice environment anymore. What a shame. 70 minutes from signs of obvious distress until he got any meaningful care. If there were actual doctors present they should be banned from practicing medicine too.
 
TahoeLegend said:
Disgusting.

Some of these coaches and especially the fitness coaches have severe psychological problems and the the kids pay the price.

And the sad part is there is no reason for it. Great coaches like Saban and Swinney and Bob Stoops don't do it (although Mike Stoops is a moron).

I hope to see Durkin and everyone on his staff involved in this charged with crimes and prosecuted and jailed. What a bunch of scumbags.
Click to expand...

I have to agree first hand about some of these "strength and conditioning" fitness coaches being crazy. Several years ago while helping coach a high school basketball team there was a teacher in the school who was the "strength and conditioning" coach for the team. Dude was the biggest asshole ever when it came to actually caring about his job. Only real reason he was around was because he was friends with some of the other coaches. Would work the kids hard for sure, but when one of them was hurt or unable to continue he'd bust out the most unenthusiastic "eh you ok? nah bro if you can't do it, just sit out". Officially he "said" the right thing, but did he ever walk over to the kid or actually check the kid out? Hell no. Was really disappointing. Some coaches seriously just...idk anymore, power trip, ego trip...control, desperation, who knows...but the kids are the ones that suffer the most.
 
Summary of press conference:

(In a very serious voice, trying to look sad and serious at the same time) As you know, more than two months ago a horse got out of the barn. We thought we could kind of ignore it, but then those bastards in the press started writing about it so today, for the first time, I flew on a private jet--you really don't express me to travel like all you guys fly do you--and apologized to the owner of the horse. I told them and I tell you, that is against everything we stand for here at the barn, everything we strive for, everything we promise, and it is NOT ACCEPTABLE.

(drops voice again and tries to look sad) We told the people who owned the horse how sorry we are that the horse got out and went on for a long time about how from now on other people's horse won't get out, blah blah blah. I think they bought it. We promised them, with all out hearts and souls, that we will NEVER FORGET that horse. And I promise everyone that our barn door will be really, really shut now.

We were wrong and all the people in charge of the horse and the barn were wrong and the horse would not have gotten out if we had done our job, but it wasn't the head barn door coach's fault, even though he is in charge of the players and gets millions of dollars a year to know what is going on with the people he hired.

We have appointed a committee to stall as long as possible and then report back to us and then we will review the findings and then we will appoint another committee to come up with recommendations.

In the meantime, I, all my staff, all my assistants, the barn manager. the barn door coach and all his assistants, the guy in charge of the horses, the guy in charge of the door, the guy in charge of locking the door, all the guys in charge of checking the door, and the guy who reports when the door is open, will remain on salary and receive full benefits and expenses as though nothing happened.

Oh, wait, we had to fire one guy because the press found out he always left the door open, but all the rest of us who hired him and all of us who looked the other way when he left the door open because we didn't give a shit what he did will remain on salary. And the head barn door coach, who made the guy we just fired his number one priority and hired him before he hired anyone else and who met with him several times every day was totally unaware of what the fired guy was doing so he stays on full salary.

But never forget this, all horse owners mark these words, as soon as that horse left we locked the door and we will ALWAYS, ALWAYS remember that horse.

Thank you, now we all have tee times later so don't bother calling my office.
 
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President Loh clearly tried to separate the two issues (1) the medical malfeasance and negligence handling Jordan McNair's heat stroke related death and (2) the toxic culture issue with bullying and intimidation of the student athletes. The University accepted full liability for improper handling of McNair's treatment and care after he was stricken and admitted they did not follow established protocols for treating heat stroke (i.e. checking temperature, cold water immersion). As tragic as this situation is, it is at least admirable that the university has accepted the responsibility and chosen to share the interim results of the investigation with McNair's parents. This will allow for a future settlement and not put the McNair family through what would be a very painful litigation in light of the tragic death of their son. The strength and conditioning coach Rick Court has been fired. What I do not understand is how the lead athletic trainer Wes Robinson has not been fired at this point, as he is clearly negligent and did not follow industry best practice re: heat related medical issues. Loh has now established another 4 member commission to review, investigate the entire culture of the football program which includes several retired judges and one unnamed at this point former coach/AD. The toxic culture issues mentioned in the ESPN story all quoted anonymous sources, and it seems that there is issue with the validity of some of those statements. The university seems intent on gathering the information from both of these investigations before making a final decision on Durkin.
 
Unreal that they haven't parted ways with the head trainer. I get needing the independent investigation before going crazy, but very hard to see Durkin make it through what happened under his watch. Buys them time to get a buyout in order really.

And the full responsibility aspect is to be commended at least. Pay out, move on as quickly as possible.
 
Oooooh, it gets even slimier.

Turns our Court was not fired after all. He and the school came to a "mutual agreement," but the agreement included the fact--deliberately not mentioned at the press conference of course--that he was given $350, 000 dollars of taxpayer money as a parting gift.

So that means that the kid died more than two months ago, the school admitted he did not get even grade school football level medical care, Court embarrassed the school and mistreated kids while on the state payroll, but no one misses even one day's pay.

The president reacted slightly better than the moron president of Penn State, but they should all be embarrassed at that performance today.

The deserve zero points for finally, after two months, accepting moral and legal responsibility, but that was because they had no choice. That is the least they could do today and they did the least.

So a kid is dead and everyone responsible is still getting paid.
 
A kid they were responsible for died and they are, likely, at least partly to blame by their own admission.

I am an intent person .... and I don't think anyone intended harm ... which makes this much different than the wife beater at tosu (and his enabler) or the pedo at penn state (and his enabler). But the attempt to sweep it under the rug by the school is just as bad as the other two.

Tragic event, and one I could actually have sympathy for the coaches on if they had acted properly afterward but not like this.

You have to fire everybody. Sorry. Have to.
 
You raise an interesting issue that has not been mentioned by the school or press, RetroVK.

Criminal charges are sure to be filed in this case unless the university has so much pull the authorities back off. There is an old saying by prosecutors, "if you have a body you have a case."

Not murder, but this case precisely fits the definition of involuntary manslaughter. Every state has slightly different wording on their statutes, but whatever it is in Maryland, you have a death and that death resulted from negligence. In this case it appears to be extreme negligence.

Every time a kid dies as a result of insane training ;policies the schools all say they are going to take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again, but it always does.

Sometimes the school has enough pull that everyone walks. The last case I heard of was a couple of years ago at Oklahoma State. The basketball players were forced to run dozens of sprints, during the summer, on the turf of the football field. Yes, it makes no sense whatsoever, it's insane for basketball players to run in summer heat on a football field, but Underwood, now at Illinois, is one of the old school guys who enjoys punishing players. A player died, circumstances almost exactly like the Maryland kid, and Oklahoma State swept it under the rug.

Maryland will try and do the same, but I hope some prosecutor steps in and nails everyone he can.
 
Agree that Evans (AD) skirted around the termination of Court in his presser, the settlement was not mentioned. I am sure that Court's attorneys advised him to take a settlement before the results of the investigation by Walter's Inc. became public. I can't believe that he received any settlement at all, seems like he should have been fired for cause but I guess they wanted him out immediately.
 
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