Brandon Statement On Morris Incident Comment Count

Brian

In Full:

Ultimate responsibility for the health and safety of our student-athletes resides with each team's coach and with me, as the Director of Athletics. We are committed to continuously improving our procedures to better protect the health and welfare of our student-athletes.

I have had numerous meetings beginning Sunday morning to thoroughly review the situation that occurred at Saturday's football game regarding student-athlete Shane Morris. I have met with those who were directly involved and who were responsible for managing Shane's care and determining his medical fitness for participation.

In my judgment, there was a serious lack of communication that led to confusion on the sideline. Unfortunately, this confusion created a circumstance that was not in the best interest of one of our student-athletes. I sincerely apologize for the mistakes that were made. We have to learn from this situation, and moving forward, we will make important changes so we can fully live up to our shared goal of putting student-athlete safety first.

I have worked with Darryl Conway, my associate athletic director for Student-Athlete Health and Welfare, to develop a detailed accounting of the events that occurred. Darryl is the person who oversees all athletic training personnel and serves as the liaison to the physicians we work with through the University of Michigan Health System and University Health Services.

It is important to note that our athletic trainers and physicians working with Michigan Athletics have the unchallengeable authority to remove student-athletes from the field of play. Michigan Athletics has numerous medical professionals at every football competition including certified athletic trainers and several physicians from various relevant specialties.

I, along with Darryl and our administrative and medical teams, have spent much of the last two days carefully reviewing the situation regarding Shane Morris. We now understand that, despite having the right people on the sidelines assessing our student-athletes' well being, the systems we had in place were inadequate to handle this unique and complex situation properly.

With his permission, I can share that Shane Morris suffered an ankle injury during the third quarter of Saturday's game. He was evaluated for that injury by an orthopedic surgeon and an athletic trainer several times during the game. With each of these evaluations it was determined that his ankle injury did not prevent him from playing.

In the fourth quarter, Shane took a significant hit and stumbled after getting up. From the field level and without the benefit of replays, medical and coaching staffs did not see the hit. Because they did not see the hit, the athletic training staff believed Shane stumbled because of his ankle injury. The team neurologist, watching from further down the field, also did not see the hit. However, the neurologist, with expertise in detecting signs of concussion, saw Shane stumble and determined he needed to head down the sideline to evaluate Shane.

Shane came off the field after the following play and was reassessed by the head athletic trainer for the ankle injury. Since the athletic trainer had not seen the hit to the chin and was not aware that a neurological evaluation was necessary, he cleared Shane for one additional play.

The neurologist and other team physicians were not aware that Shane was being asked to return to the field, and Shane left the bench when he heard his name called and went back into the game. Under these circumstances, a player should not be allowed to re-enter the game before being cleared by the team physician. This clearly identifies the need for improvements in our sideline and communications processes.

Following the game, a comprehensive concussion evaluation was completed and Shane has been evaluated twice since the game. As of Sunday, Shane was diagnosed with a probable, mild concussion, and a high ankle sprain. That probable concussion diagnosis was not at all clear on the field on Saturday or in the examination that was conducted post-game. Unfortunately, there was inadequate communication between our physicians and medical staff and Coach Hoke was not provided the updated diagnosis before making a public statement on Monday. This is another mistake that cannot occur again.

Going forward, we have identified two changes in our procedures that we will implement immediately:

We will have an athletic medicine professional in the press box or video booth to ensure that someone will have a bird's eye view of the on-field action, have television replay available and have the ability to communicate with medical personnel on the sidelines.

We are also examining how to reinforce our sideline communication processes and how decisions will be made in order to make sure that information regarding student-athlete availability to participate is communicated effectively amongst the medical team and to our coaches.

We have learned from this experience, and will continue to improve ways to keep our student-athletes' health and safety our number one priority.

Comments

Space Coyote

September 30th, 2014 at 9:05 AM ^

But why would someone come out and say something if they knew they would be proven a liar a couple [hand full] of hours later?

I mean, did he lie and no one in the AD told him "here's what we're going to say", but instead just told him they'd release a statement and he'd be fine? Maybe that's the case. Then Hoke is a liar and the AD is throwing him under the bus as well.

My take is that they purposefully left him in the dark and he didn't do a damn thing to gain any information. He didn't do a damn thing to protect himself. He didn't do a damn thing to protect his coaches. Not to get into the fact that his player obviously wasn't protected on the field to the point he needs to be.

I dunno, it's a fuck up either way. Could Hoke have tricked a ton of people into thinking he was a good guy that really cared about his players but in reality was a self-serving liar? Maybe. Sometimes pressure makes you do stupid things. More likely, in my mind, is that Hoke is a guy that puts way too much trust into those around him, doesn't fully grasp the implications and impacts at a program this size when you don't know everything, and has an AD that in fact loves that quality in him. That much more appropriate fits into what we've learned about the parties in question to me.

Reader71

September 30th, 2014 at 10:19 AM ^

The only way that Hoke would not have known about the concussion on Sunday is if Morris was held out of practice because of the ankle, and while the team was out on the field, Morris was given the concussion tests. As far as I can see, that is the only scenario in which Hoke legitimately doesn't know.

But I don't believe it. It still doesn't explain why he didn't know about it before the presser on Monday. Even if he had no idea on Sunday (unlikely), he MUST have heard something about it on Monday.

Fire Hoke. Fire Brandon. Fire Schmidt. Fire the neurologist. At least the medical team refused to be bullied by Brandon, bit that does not excuse the fact Paul Schmidt stood next to and talked to a concussed player and cleared him to go in the game. He didn't see the hit? That's not good, but it is perhaps forgivable. But how could he have talked to the kid and not seen anything wrong? It's his job.

Gene

September 30th, 2014 at 11:47 AM ^

Well it's possible Hoke may have been thinking the whole thing will blow over and his statements never put to the test. Seems unlikely though. More likely he convinced himself of a narrative that absolves him of responsibility, even though it looks ridiculous to most people.

Also I'm sick of hearing the "good guy" vs "poser" thing. People are complex critters, and it's never so cut and dry. He can both genuinely care about his players and be a self-serving liar. Logically incongruous, perhaps, but there you go: humans.

Gene

September 30th, 2014 at 11:48 AM ^

Well it's possible Hoke may have been thinking the whole thing will blow over and his statements never put to the test. Seems unlikely though. More likely he convinced himself of a narrative that absolves him of responsibility, even though it looks ridiculous to most people.

Also I'm sick of hearing the "good guy" vs "poser" thing. People are complex critters, and it's never so cut and dry. He can both genuinely care about his players and be a self-serving liar. Logically incongruous, perhaps, but there you go: humans.

TIMMMAAY

September 30th, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^

If you think back to his press conference when he directly addressed Morris stumbling. He said very clearly that Morris told him his ankle gave out. "That's what he told me..." 

Fuck this shit, I am done defending any of them. Even if SC were correct in his comment above, this one is beyond spin. He lied, very clearly. He isn't a very intellegent man, though I had hoped there was more than meets the eye. There isn't. 

5th and Long

September 30th, 2014 at 7:21 AM ^

In my judgment, there was a serious lack of communication that led to confusion on the sideline.

  Could this be something that would help with that issue?  Asking for a friend...  Communication Issues

Space Coyote

September 30th, 2014 at 8:57 AM ^

Hoke wouldn't be on the same line as the medical people anyway. If Hoke wore a headset, it would be for being connected to the coaching staff around him, not the medical staff.

He should, however, have people connected to the medical staff around him to inform him of such happenings. When he doesn't, that ultimately comes back onto him.

Don

September 30th, 2014 at 7:30 AM ^

What happened on Saturday and the two days following is bad enough for Hoke and Brandon. However, Brian's reference to pressures being put on the medical professionals to alter or soft-pedal their medical conclusion that a concussion did indeed occur is another thing entirely, because it speaks to an attempted coverup.

If this is ever corroborated by any of the medical people, then that would give the Regents and Schlissel all the justification they could ever need to fire Brandon and/or Hoke immediately.

bronxblue

September 30th, 2014 at 7:46 AM ^

I don't believe most medical professionals would find the need to soft-pedal a diagnosis in this situation; if anything, they would get more flack if they said Morris was probably fine and didn't have a concussion.  Sadly, this just feels like yet another example of the clusterfuck that is Michigan right now; nobody talking to anyone and everybody trying to cover his ass to mitigate his liability.

 

Don

September 30th, 2014 at 7:55 AM ^

Brian IS NOT saying that the medical guys themselves were "finding the need to soft-pedal a diagnosis"—he's saying or implying that the medical guys were being pressured by others "to soft-pedal" their medical conclusion. There's a huge difference there at least with respect to medical ethics and responsibility.

If there is even the barest appearance that anybody—whether the AD or the football staff—were trying to persuade the medical guys to alter their own wording in any way, no matter how slight, I guarantee that the outside world will regard it as an active attempt to cover up the seriousness of the situation, regardless of the nature of the actual discussions over parsing and wordsmithing.

Don

September 30th, 2014 at 9:28 AM ^

Damn straight it would. The media likes nothing more in these situations than even the barest appearance of a "cover-up," and given that the subject at hand is essentially medical health—something that the University of Michigan obviously takes very seriously in general—the resulting shitstorm nationally and locally would ratchet up the situation to DefCon 1.

Surferrosy

September 30th, 2014 at 7:31 AM ^

Also, believing that administrators/Regents/Prez/whoever are ok with this shitstorm and the nightmare PR that has to be coming at UM right now...how can they both still be employed? I just can't believe that. These grown, professional men are representing the University of Michigan with every step, every lie, every "apology," every obviously ridiculous attempt to sweep this under the rug, not just the football team or the medical staff or whatever.



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bronxblue

September 30th, 2014 at 7:36 AM ^

This sounds about as reasonable as you would expect. Somebody should have told the coaches after the hit what happened and that Morris looked bad. I absolutely buy that they thought his issues were with the ankle. The fact he was still out there with that ankle injury in the first place is inexcusable, though.

UMForLife

September 30th, 2014 at 7:38 AM ^

So, Hoke wouldn't wear a headset so the neurologist can communicate with him about the issue.

Hoke talks to Shane twice, but he would not ask him about his "possible" concussion.

Brandon found out, but wouldn't let Hoke, "the Head Coach", know.

They have to wait until early morning hours of Tuesday (similar to Minnesota debacle), to make a press release on this.

Hoke comes up with vehement denials during his presser and shows no remorse or anger at himself for not asking the right questions.

Now, there is a way out for Hoke to put on a show on Wednesday's presser and get out of it.

The scape goat is the stupid communication between the neurologist and the Doctors on the field.

Wow. How dumb this all sounds. This exhibits the complete incompetence and lack of leadership.

They created a scenarior where everyone can wiggle out of this. Just Wow. They sound like our congress.

Fire Brandon for throwing his coach under the bus.

Fire Hoke for being adamant and incompetence.

bronxblue

September 30th, 2014 at 7:50 AM ^

One other point - this is Brandon absolutely doing damage control from himself, Hoke be damned.  That's just sad - Hoke at least has the excuse of having to coach a bunch of kids, make decisions about plays, player usage, etc. while on the sidelines.  Brandon's only real additions to the football program have been increased ticket costs, decreased attendance, and a general malaise and distrust for the AD by the fans and students.  Hoke is over his head as the HC but at least his heard seems to be in it (until recently, at least); Brandon is a stupid, empty suit who parlayed getting into one game under Bo and a corporate gig running a mediocre pizza chain nearby into rather clearly destroying much of the remaining goodwill around one of the preemininent programs in the country.

dmac24

September 30th, 2014 at 7:53 AM ^

Is it at all possible that Hoke is being railroaded by Brandon and thus made to look worse than he actually is?  Could he just be following Brandon's lead (Walking into a presser without correct information) because he has blind loyalty?  Maybe I just fell for Hoke's persona of a family guy through his tenure here.  This is just ridiculous.

Space Coyote

September 30th, 2014 at 8:53 AM ^

That in no way absolves Hoke (see my post below), he needs to step up to cover his own ass. But to me it seems like Hoke did see what he said (he watched the ball), was made immediately aware, then Brandon did some digging and the most the AD was willing to tell him was that they would release a statement later.

To me it doesn't make sense for Hoke to lie, not even backtrack at the Monday presser if he had any clue what was going to be released. I think he saw what he saw and they kept him in the dark and he did a really bad job fighting to find out more because he trusts the people around him to do their jobs. Every statement he's made, in my opinion, has aligned with that view point.

ChelseaRick

September 30th, 2014 at 9:59 AM ^

Hoke says he didn't see the hit.  Now I am not sure because I have seen the hit on Morris' chin so many times on this blog and my tv at home, but wasn't there a replay in the stadium of this hit?  I thought I saw it, right after the play, on the big screen.  Hoke didn't look up?  No one looked up and saw the replay of the hit? 

I'm sorry, I like Hoke, but I just can't believe the University's story that Hoke didn't know of the possible head injury. 

I haven't read all 300 comments above to know if this has already been covered.  Sorry if it has.

westwardwolverine

September 30th, 2014 at 9:10 AM ^

If Hoke were actually brimming with integrity like some people would have us believe, he would have just come clean during his press conference. Explain that he is in charge and he messed up and that he'll work harder in the future to make sure it doesn't happen again. Apologize to Shane, etc. He knows he's gone, so why continue the charade? 

I suppose there is a 0.01% chance he really didn't know about the concussion and Brandon is trying to set him up even more maliciously that it looks by keeping the medical staff and Shane from telling about it...

Anyway, his next press conference is going to be a doozy.  

Y0ST

September 30th, 2014 at 8:07 AM ^

For someone that was at the game: Did the hit on Shane replay on the video board? How did no one with authority see a hit that was flagged and had a large crowd response? I call bullshit.

YoOoBoMoLloRoHo

September 30th, 2014 at 8:35 AM ^

problem within the program, let's just cite the unethical bureaucracy that runs it and the whole AD team.

Obviously Hoke was put in a bad situation by his boss (I don't know what he knew when). He still had a choice, but walking into a presser with either limited info or damning info is devastating. It doesn't excuse any poor choices that he made. His boss graciously released damning info AFTER the presser in a lawyered memo. Wow.

No coach in the country will be willing to work for Brandon and it looks like the whole AD needs a house cleaning.

samdrussBLUE

September 30th, 2014 at 8:40 AM ^

Those on our sideline have no vision or communication. Since this has been shown for many years, this should come as a surprise to no one



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You Only Live Twice

September 30th, 2014 at 8:43 AM ^

..so.. not knowing how things go in the Athletic department... in terms of management in general:  if Brandon is the type of boss that must control everything and everyone, that means that when things go really bad (which they have), then this person has to step down and immediately.  If he is throwing his head coach under the bus, no other coach will want to work for him for any amount of money.

jocular_jock

September 30th, 2014 at 8:47 AM ^

If only there were some sort of device which would allow people to speak to one another over long distances. Something that would allow two way communication. Hmmm. It would probably need a microphone or some sort of device which would allow sound waves to be transmitted to voltages, those voltages could be relayed via low frequency light waves so to a similar reciever where it can be reconverted to voltages which would vibrate a paper plate. If all of this were reversible and portable, I would call it a headset.



I should be an AD. I just invented the headset. Someone tell Hoke!

RJMAC

September 30th, 2014 at 8:47 AM ^

Why didn't the team neurologist examine Morris immediately? He saw him stumble on the field, and started walking down to him. What took so long to examine him? Morris was in for another play, removed for about 90 seconds before reentering the game for the one final play. Did the neurologist just assume the head trainer was examining him for a concussion?

Space Coyote

September 30th, 2014 at 9:37 AM ^

Anyway, that's my subtle entrance into a minor tirade. I said yesterday something along the lines of "either everyone screwed up or this isn't as big of a deal as it's made out to be." I was on the wrong side of that, because I didn't believe that literally everyone would screw it up. A few people? Sure, people make mistakes, they miss some things, that happens. But this takes a complete mess up by everyone involved for this to happen. Everyone screwed up from the coaching staff, to the medical staff, to the AD; they all did.

On the coaching staff:

None of this is as much directly on Hoke as it is on others. Hoke was supposedly watching the ball, other coaches were supposedly looking at other things. I think those are things within reason. By Hoke does control the sideline, it's his sideline to own. That means that indirectly this falls on him more than anyone else. The arrows don't point from point A to point B with point B being Hoke, but they all finish at Hoke eventually, he's accountable for that. But instead of standing up and getting the people around him, the people he trusts, to do their fucking job, we get a DC getting a sideline infraction, we get 10 men on special teams, we have not one single coach or apparently even a strength staff or medical staff person with their eyes glued on Morris, except for some dude down by the kickers that can't walk the sideline and apparently doesn't have access to a radio to tell anyone else. That's a lack of attention to detail that ends up on Hoke, regardless of how it's sliced. He controls the sideline and when people around him continue to fail doing their jobs, then it becomes apparent that the issue isn't being resolved where it needs to be resolved, with Hoke.

Likewise, you get dooped by your AD again and you just allow it. You lay the fuck down and take it. It's your damn character on the line more than anyone elses and you allow them to tell you "we'll release a statement, we have all the facts; we won't tell you the facts so you just keep saying what you're saying and we'll be good." Because when they mean "we'll be good" they mean they'll be good and you'll be fucked. You know what you're stepping into at that presser, demand some answers so you can protect yourself. Go over someone's head if you have to, but protect yourself. You can still deflect to the press release, you can still say you didn't see the hit and that'd be true, but you don't say things like "Shane Morris didn't suffer a concussion I don't think" and "I assume the training staff did their job". Have some balls and protect yourself. It's one thing not to know immediately in the game when you are relying on others because you have to. It's another thing following the game. It becomes a major failure when it's Monday and you still haven't sought protection for yourself. Protect yourself from those above you and below you so you can protect the people you are in charge of (your coaches and your players and yourself).

And this is why Nick Saban yells at people for putting tents in the wrong spot outside the stadium prior to orientation, because it's his ass on the line in the end. I'm not for micromanaging, but at some point you have to defend your own integrity.

On the medical staff:

I understand the head guy not seeing it. I understand people actually confusing Morris wobbly actions to be due to the ankle injury rather than a head injury if they didn't see the hit. Hell, I understand the neuro guy being down the sideline probably with the kickers and other guys that are on the sideline but not immediately part of the team.

But why doesn't this guy have a radio to contact someone close to the coaches? Why does it take this guy to take so long to get down the sideline. Why, in God's name, once Morris gets to the sideline, isn't this guy stepping the fuck up and saying "No, I think he may have suffered a head injury". "Morris's name was called", it doesn't matter, it's your job to say "No, we have to check him out." You're put in position and people trust you in that position to make that call. I mean, it's seriously one thing for Morris to play the next play. Things happen fast and small breakdowns in communication can result in that sort of thing. But it was three minutes between when he came out and went back on. There is absolutely no reason for him to see the field again without receiving proper medical care.

On the AD

Once again, as an AD, they have set up this football program to fail. Hoke is probably relying on the AD to institue this sort of action before something like this happens. These things are intended to be out of the coaches's hands for a reason, so they aren't accountable when mistakes happen. So that's failure number one.

And yet, the whole PR thing was a set up for everyone to fail as well. I still think the media made more of this that it ought to, but if it's bringing positive change then it becomes harder to fault it. But you make the classic blunder of not addressing the issue, thinking it only will bring credibility to the account, which instead just adds speculation and turns up the heat. So that was a bullshit move from a business standpoint, let alone other standpoints. Then you conduct work behind closed doors, which is fine really, but you send out the heads of your football team to talk to the media and don't give them a chance in hell to survive. You left them out to dry. You said "trust us", they did, and you boned them. You looked out for yourself.

It's a fucking disgrace that this AD looks out for the this core department of athletics instead of the entire athletic department. They'll let anyone below them fry if they think it'll save them a little skin. We've known that with how they've backtracked off of stupid shit in the past. I think some of the reaction has been overboard, but no one is denying the handling of these things has always been crappy at best. That's always been the crux of the issue. Things that are probably minor annoyances get blown up into bigger things because the AD sucks at it's job, so when bigger things happen it turns into fucking national news because the AD sucks at their job.

So yeah, I apologize for some of yesterday, apparently I was wrong on some accounts. I still don't think Hoke and his staff are a bunch of idiots. What they are is a staff that hasn't paid enough attention to details, hasn't demanded attention to details, and has put trust into people that they shouldn't trust, and now they look like a bunch of assclowns. That's what it looks like to me with regards to this instance and the product on the field.

dragonchild

September 30th, 2014 at 9:56 AM ^

"I still don't think Hoke and his staff are a bunch of idiots. What they are is a staff that hasn't paid enough attention to details, hasn't demanded attention to details, and has put trust into people that they shouldn't trust, and now they look like a bunch of assclowns."

I appreciate the honest assessment but I'll have to disagree on this one point.  This, on a professional level, is an idiot.  It's an idiot in every way that matters.  They're idiots.  Professionally, there's no difference between someone too stupid to understand the details and too lazy to dig for them because you're still stuck with ignorance either way.

Maybe Hoke had dreams of Michigan being some heaven of resources where he gets Top. Men. to do all the important things while he gets to sit in a big office, coach the DL (and mind you he's damn good at it) and call fake field goals.  That's an innocent perspective of his tenure, but if it puts a player at risk then unacceptable is still unacceptable.  I have very little tolerance to people who apply for jobs they're not qualified for.  Yes there's something to be said for Dunning-Kruger, but as a HC at smaller programs Hoke damn well knows about the things he delegated (according to your theory).  Also, you can't honestly say something is a "top priority" if you've delegated it below your top position.  That is by definition NOT a top priority.

Getting all the details isn't just about protecting yourself.  Just the fact that he was content to trust others regarding Morris' condition shows a lack of engagement, press conference be damned.  Forget the press conference.  If you care about someone, wouldn't you want to know how they're doing??  Even if he thought Morris just had an ankle injury, wouldn't he have some sort of post-game injury report from the medical staff by SUNDAY?  How long is a HC content to wait for a medical release for a QB?  Just how much does he delegate out of his control??  I mean, starter injuries are a basic part of preparing for the next game even without this scandal.  People are arguing whether this is incompetence or a cover-up but I'd say this incident sheds light on just how poorly the program is managed.