OSU Still Protecting Details on Rhabdo Event
From this morning's Columbus Dispatch is a story regarding how OSU continues to protect information about a Rhabdomyolysis (Rhabdo) event that affected six Women's LAX players one year ago.
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/sports/2013/03/09/illness-laid-low-6-athletes.html
The story is of added note as it features Kelly Becker and her family and their efforts to encourage OSU to more fully disclose the events that caused the six athletes to fall ill. Since the event Kelly earned a medical hardship and transferred to the Michigan Women's LAX team.
The infamous Iowa running-back disease?
I chose to not risk lowering my IQ from reading an ohio-based newspaper.
It happened during off season work outs a couple of years ago. You might have missed it, because it happened after the season ended, and aside from the illness and questions about pushing players too far, it didn't turn into a big scandal or anything. LINK
Coincidentally, one of the Iowa players hospitalized was Poggi's old brother, who plays linebacker.
OSU has always been the model for transparency.
If OSU has taught fellow NCAA members anything its got to be how to handle NCAA investigators during an active investigation. Obfuscate, deny and withhold. Use any and all means necessary to block the flow of information and when pressed simply lie about the events that took place.
At the end of the day the NCAA lacks supoena power so all the can do ask real nicely for the schools to comply and basically indict themselves. OSU was smart enough to not do so and instead of pressing the issue with one of their cash-cows, the NCAA folded and moved elsewhere. Don't think for a minute that Miami didn't watch this all unfold and will be doing the same thing here shortly as well.
So this is just more of the same.
With competent trainers, rhabdomyolysis should never happen to a group of athletes. I see that Ohio fired the S&C coach involved. I suspect that what happened in Iowa and probably in Ohio is a coach telling the trainers to push the athletes really hard, and the trainers either being afraid to say no or not being competent enough to know the limits of the new routines. It's not as if the victims of these incidents are out of shape hacks; they are all well conditioned athletes to start with. There ought to be consequences that go beyond just the S&C coach.
"There ought to be consequences that go beyond just the S&C coach."
Absolutely. Of course we can look at the consequences that went beyond Tressell...
I'm wondering if some type of practice limits were exceeded and that's why they've been so tight-lipped about it?
"Ohio State made me physically ill, so I transferred to Michigan". cool.
Your username is very fitting for this story.
"The OSU report includes a timeline of events leading up to the hospitalization, reasons why "the incident likely happened," and recommendations for increased education and prevention. Suggestions for university outreach on rhabdo were outlined, but did not include the report’s publication." - from the article
So, they write a detailed report about the incidents complete with recommendations for education and outreach, but they didn't recommend providing documents which would be critical to education and outreach? Gene Smith said that they were thinking about ways to get better relative to OSU, so what better way to do that than publish a report of an incident of rhabdo at Ohio State. Did I miss something here?
Exertional rhabdomyolysis is becoming increasing common in high school, college, and professional sports. The biggest risk factors seem to be when there is excessive eccentric exercise (the negative portion to a movement like coming down on a squat), repeated high intensity efforts, heat, dehydration, and inexperience. Novel exercise is big here. There have been a number of lawsuits of it occuring with people trying crossfit who are simply not prepared for the high intensity nature of the workout because they are pretty much new to training and don't have a strength or conditioning base yet and figure crossfit would be a good way to get fit. But, you also see it a lot either in the beginning of preseason workouts when athletes aren't yet conditioned and heat and hydration are factors. The same can be said of new spring practices or workouts. It's something that strength coaches have on their radar, but I'm not sure sports coaches do as much, but hopefully the athletic trainers on duty for a practice can be able to judge this stuff, but not all high schools have that available to them. I expect it to become increasingly more common as high intensity exercise becomes increasingly more common and our population becomes increasingly more sedentary.
Not even a trip by all parties to the coffee capital of the country. Once again, this serves to highlight the soul-crushing effects of excessive stretching.