Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 136: University of Maryland Heat Stroke Scandal

Episode Date: July 8, 2023

all of your problems ever are because youre not drinking enough water Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 26929 Philadelphia, PA 19134 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

We are ready Go haven't had your coffee at have you hot shot. No, I have not had my coffee. I would very much like to have my coffee But don't do that. No, no, no, no, the the sooner we record this the sooner you can have coffee I'm like You what you want the bokeh don't you Ross though you like a fancy coffee. Don't you? Yeah, yeah, you what the bokeh don't you rise though you like a fancy coffee don't you're nice? Yeah With like breakfast, which is annoying Well, you should have walking up earlier. This is audio

We just so pushed for time though like this is a podcast that is perhaps sometimes listen to at 1.25 speed now We're recording it at 1.25 speed Yeah, you may be wondering where safety third is in this episode today and here you may wonder five speed. Now we're recording it at 1.25 speed. Yeah, you may be wondering where safety third is in this episode. It ain't here. You may wonder what to do. It's just in to save white. Yeah, just to say this is W.Y.P. Superlegaria. All right. When one is the one of the one of the fun things about podcasting is when you make a joke before you record the episode and then and then you have to do it a second time during the episode and everyone has to pretend it was the first time they heard. Don't

don't show them how the sausage got spilt. Don't be behind the scenes on me. All right. So this is a this is a Liam and guest episode actually. We should probably do the introductions but for once guest episode actually, which should probably do the introductions, but for once, first, hi, I'm Liam Anderson, I'm the person talking now, I'm the king of the podcast, and my pronouns are he and him, okay, go. All else confusion, I don't know who got to do it. Just to say, do I go now? Yeah, go now, you can take the fresher off me here. I'm Justin Razznack, I'm the first news talking right now.

My pronouns are he and him. Okay, go. Yay, Justin. The signal that Go has already been made. I think what the fuck? I'm Alice Codorkelli, I think. My pronouns are she and her for now. Yay, guest.

I guess. Hi, my name is Drew. I am an athletic trainer. My, uh, my pronouns are she and her. Yes. Uh, so on you. You've brought us this beautiful big M, which, yeah, thank you for bringing you M.

University of Maryland, uh, who we're going to talk about today and that time they killed a child through a sheer, sheer willful negligence. And I just realized I said, oh, and like way too happy a tone. You're like, dead child. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Woo. All right. But first we got to do the goddamn news. next slide, please. Just a quick one, single news item this time, but it's an obvious one. Make the damn cake. Bake the damn cake. So the Supreme Court of the United States of America have invented a new kind of standing

in federal court, which is I was afraid something might happen to me. And my lawyers kind of made up was afraid something might happen to me. They did. And I, my lawyers kind of made up an instance of it happening to me. They made up a guy and brought that guy to the Supreme Court. Yes. Yeah, it's, it's the year of living the life. We're going to get mad at. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Proving the life, it rotates Twitter. Uh-huh. So, so this case has essentially legalized discriminating against LGBT people on the grounds of like, I don't like them. So, it's nearly held religious beliefs. Mm-hmm. It always always lies a lot of other kinds of discrimination. Yeah, this is just, this is throwing the doors open. Mm-hmm. This stuck with the obvious

one first. And this uh, I think it was a woman who like was afraid that maybe she was going to be asked to design a website for a gay wedding. What's never has. Why would you wedding have a website that's, I'm not going to fucking a good thing that people do now. I'm willing as a website. Why? Why? Why? It's hosted on the not, which is like a hosting service for this specifically, and it was strange to call it that. Okay. Well, you know, the millennials are ruining the wedding website industry, so yeah. That's right. And so now we can't have nice

things in the United States anymore, anywhere. I mean, this is like one of about a dozen cases where it's sort of like, you have this strange thing. I know it must be considerably stranger living in America where you just like, you're going about your day and you get hit by a laser beam of like nine old guys have decided that you can't have this anymore. It's like, you know, you're being bullied by Septogenarians. Like someone's coming like slapping the coffee out of your hand and being like, no, that's illegal now.

No, I didn't, I didn't get my coffee yet. You can't slap it out of my hand. I'm drinking water. When you go to Wawa, they're going to slap the coffee out of your hand because of sincerely held religious belief. Oh, my God. Certainly hold these nuts. And I mean, you know, to talk about intellectual lacuna and stuff, but like, there's, there,

there, I think it's fair to ask the question, what is to be done? And luckily we have the leadership of Firebrand communist president Joe Brandon, who has said he's got up in the White House and he's called for sort of like people's self-defense and to kill these, but no, he said it's bad, but like I'm not going to do anything and you shouldn't. That's right. That's what I think you want to do. I think it can be done. Yeah, nothing can be done or should be done. This is just the way it is forever. You just have this sort of like guardian counsel that's just going to get scared anytime anything happens and make it so everything has to be a little

bit worse now. Yeah. It's remarkable just how much legitimacy the court seems to have lost in the court of public opinion. You know, this, this, this, I mean, this is sort of a return to the historical mean of the Supreme Court making really terrible decisions, which, you know, the entire, like several decades ending in the 2010s or the 2000s was an aberration, you know, where they would, they would, they had judicial activism and stuff like that, where, you know, they tried to make stuff better. We're back to the normal where their main job is to make stuff worse. And I, nothing short of getting rid of this institution entirely is going to solve that, you know, Joe Biden, please send F 35 to invalidate Marbury versus Madison. I've been saying this is the official position of the podcast Marbury and versus Madison. I've been saying this.

This is the official position of the podcast, Marbury Madison was wrongly decided. Yeah. It is bad law. These guys just, they're not real. They made themselves up. Yeah, they made themselves up. Yeah, you can ignore it.

You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. You can ignore it. Yeah. Yeah. It's also the affirmative action is gone now and you don't get student room relief Supreme Court to Americans.

Die. I stole that joke from our guest. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, trail. You're welcome. Yeah. And like apparently Biden has a plan on student loan relief.

I'll believe it when I see it. Yeah, it's not very good from the early leaks. I can't believe I don't think I'm shocking. It's like putting out a statement that's like try and get hit by a university bus Yes, 100% off your first session at betterhelp.com Oh, yeah, they had to send out that The student loan servicing Yeah, this is the thing. Yeah, I believe that Devon. Sorry. All right. Yeah, that makes that make you just

Yeah, just believe any mention of the S word. Please, and thank you. Yeah. But yeah, so that is they had to sort of say, hey, here are some ways to some cool ways to discharge your student loans. And they're all just like, die. Yeah. I was New York Times, the federal, the department of education or whichever one it was was like Tweety outlinks to the

Hotline Yeah, in advance to these loans with payments restarting Highline great way to get the police to break down your door actually. Yeah, you two can get welfare checks. Yeah, yeah welfare checked into a wall. Yeah. All right, that was the goddamn news. Terrible. All for commentary.

That was the goddamn news. All right, so we are here today to talk about football. I take it back to non-terrible countries. Got a football in it. Football. That's a football. Yeah, we're good. Let's undo that preconception real quick

Drew do you want to take this slide or would you like me to? Honestly, you might be better at it. I can I can pitch in if you miss something. Yeah, so in the early days of okay That's just Google rise. So I Clicked the button wrong. So the early days of football. It doesn't look much like the game you sort of know today Yeah So the early days of football, it doesn't look much like the game you sort of know today. Yeah. Like cool let the helmets and you could die like even more so. And they did a lot of the time. There was by 1905, 23 college football players had died playing the game. We talk about this extensively in our S.E.

No, no, no, in 1905. In 1905, no, that's what I meant. Sorry about that. Yeah. To the point where Teddy Roosevelt sort of had to get involved and create a commission as to why people kept dying, because he likes football as sort of an architect of manhood. Yeah.

And they were out there with the leather helmets on doing like Bruce Lee and Game of Death shit. You know, like, you know, the linebacker's got like push daggers and non-chalko and stuff. Yeah, it's exactly right. We, it and stuff. Yeah, it's exactly right. Uh, we, it's it. No, it's exactly right. This game is fucking horrible.

Uh, even that the helmets weren't mandatory until 1939. Yeah. Uh, they were just where like rugby style leather helmets or nothing, sometimes just nothing. So you got to remember that the game started being played in I believe, 18 or 1867, maybe 1877. The first college football game was a win by Rutgers. It was the only one we've ever had and the only one we will ever have. I'm dining out on it, ever since.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the Scarlet Knights, baby. We should talk about just the game has gotten one of the things I want to talk about something that's not known to the site. The game has gotten faster training has gotten better. And therefore, the sport is more brutal than ever. Yeah, you see these like big impacts of like guys running into each other and like how would on how that's like, right?

You hit your head on every play basically, especially if you play a line or D line. You will hit your head Constantly and you like I want to be very clear on this just before we even get into What happened to Jordan McNair football is a sport that will kill you on a timeline long enough. Yeah, you will die You will not recognize your family or friends and you will You know there know, there are normal, there are many documented cases of players committing or dying by the S word, because they don't even know who, they don't even fucking know. I just hate that we've already made essentially a running bit to avoid being sent to know

the S word now. Yes. Well, we got a lot of complaints about the photography episode. Oh, because it was good, but because YouTube, I have to upload the audio only version of it, so if you can't get into the bonus episode, try and log into your parents' YouTube account. try and log into your parents YouTube account. Yeah, that you live by your age. Get a fake ID and you too can, can see a robot cap a foes over dude getting other S worded. Yeah, it's shot. Yes.

So in 1940s, the plastic football helmet is pandered by Redel and do you want to talk about how much have been in arms race ever since? Yeah, so like helmets weren't even mandatory until 1939. Before then, you'd have guys that would like make helmets out of leather. The and then in 1940, right, Del Pat ends this plastic football helmet and all of a sudden, oh, we can hit way harder because we're protected. Oh, no. Um, exactly what I was trying to do.

I was faster with a seatbelt on. There's a reason they make you take a physics class to get an athletic training degree nowadays. I did like these early plastic helmets with no face guard, like no sort of like chin support or anything. It's just like, it's a dome. It's a plastic dome. There's a theory related to this where their knuckle boxing was basically actually safe for you because you couldn't.

Yeah, yeah. Because because at some point you just, you know, the lights go out and then you just go to sleep. And and now now with with gloves and shit you can be hit harder for longer. There's also a theory around football that's similar. So helmets have gotten more and more padded so people can hit harder and harder and it's gotten into this culture of football where you're just gonna like try to kill the guy. So nowadays football helmets are like they have like air padding and they're really substantial, right? And there's a theory in my field that banning helmets in football would result in less deaths.

Because you bring back some like some self-preservation instinct, I guess. Right. And I would refer you to the slide, or I would refer you to the slide where you can see like deaths like significantly dropping over time. Right? That's the top right of your screen. That's very pretty much bunk. For those of you all, we could go back to the period where a couple of dozen people died

every year. Right. Yeah. Let's not go back there. And even then, we honestly don't have much data on what concussions or even heat illness looked like prior to about 2,000, because people just didn't really think concussions were at that.

You're trying to bring science into a football game. I mean, no thanks. Yeah, we don't want it. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So like because beforehand all they were really recording was like, that's because yeah, I really care about concussions or anything. Yeah, and if you got concussed in like the 20s or whatever Nobody even knew what a concussion was you could have just had too many like cocaine eyedrops. Yeah Like it could have been any one of the like right infinite number of things that could have fucked you I mean, it's just a weird personality quirk, you know Yeah, you're just shooting at the neighbors for fun. There's that. Yeah, for sure.

Couple of years there, a couple of years there after World War One, when they started using surplus pith helmets, uh, definitely way up those years. Is that true? No, he made that. Uh, I'm willing to believe that. Anyway, that's my new sort of like alternate history, secret history of the NFL

It's like shooting at your neighbors for fun, but your neighbors have Kevlar walls, so they're like, yeah, please shoot at me more And then as of 2013 the CDC that's baby we want to have great state. It's a Colorado like that, too Yes, so you guys on different mountain tops, both farming, weed and shooting at each other with like 44 caliber pistols. Just say. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's the time. Exactly.

Sometimes you need to do a shootout with the Bureau of Landers. So that's what like mental health looks like. But yeah, Hunter S. Thompson, like every third listener's weird uncle, there's like, there's a lot of guys in Colorado and they're all like that. Same with Montana, you know? Sure. Well, Western Slough, like Rocky's Colorado. Regarding that, as of 2013, the CDC was estimating that about 1.6 to 3.8 million football concussions happen a year Roughly one every football game, which is why Americans are so normal

Cool because you play football in like high school right like junior high too So yeah, so junior high is usually tap tap or I'm sorry touch or flag But there is junior high hitting people Yeah, the players youngest like eight. Yeah cool And also we missed the word million in the notes and it said that as of 2013 They were about like between 1.6 and 3.8 concussions a year and I was like that's pretty good actually Any very many red million in there. I'd wrap it up. Yeah. And you wrote, and you read million in there. I was like, Oh, God.

Oh, God. Yeah, it's real bad. The best part was when you said, whatever football game, I was like, yeah, Americans play about between one and four football games. It's like radiation. Every day. It's like a lifetime exposure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like 17, 70, 76. We have like the entire nation is enrolled in one football game that lasts the football season. It's like jury dude, you get a letter that's like your nation. Congratulations, you're starting a guard. Why is the Gatorade on the slide though? Well, so 1967 Gatorade becomes commercially available. In this season, it was developed in Florida for... That's Gatorade.

Oh, okay. What is it? So basically, Gatorade is like, when you sweat, your sweat isn't just water, it's electrolytes. So that's your salt and your potassium. Cramping is caused by an imbalance of salt in your blood, which makes the like, which makes the gates that make your muscles stop firing, no longer stop. Or like no longer work.

If that makes sense. Yeah, so it's an electrolyte-like sport strength. Basically. So the idea behind it is people are losing sweat and sweat is saltwater basically. But they're only drinking water during play and during sport. That must mean that we should be replacing salt as well. Hey, you got a drink sweat to make sweat.

So basically, University of Florida, I think, these researchers are like, hi, can we try this? The head coach goes, no, you can't, you can't experiment on my varsity, but you can do whatever with the freshmen. So eventually, during this season, they have a, this is a 1965, they have a scrimmage between the varsity and the freshman and the freshman win.

The head coach is like, hi, we're gonna have that at all of our games, please, thank you. And then Florida goes on to have an undefeated season or something like that. And then the next year, Gatorade becomes commercially available and everybody's buying it. I just love that like freshman and the sort of American educational system are neat. They're free real estate. You can use in fact, yeah. You can do anything. You can do MK Ultra to them. You can do the Stanford prison experiment to them. You can fucking shoot them full of gaze rights. It's all good. Whatever. We'll get to it.

All right, next slide, please. So let's talk about heat stroke. Do you want me to run through this? I got it. So, okay, go for it. So, I'm gonna start just by talking about heat related illness in general, right? So, you can you can pretty easily think of heat related illnesses as a hierarchy of You've got your less severe stuff like a heat rash or heat cramps and those would progress to heat syncopey, which is like a It's like a disrupted heart rhythm and then you get heat fatigue or exhaustion and then eventually you're getting heatstroke exhaustion and then eventually you're getting heatstroke. Most people just have heat cramps. It's really common, especially for people who are like predisposed to it. Around 104 degrees Fahrenheit in the body, there's this kind of cascading

effect that happens where you reach 104 degrees Fahrenheit, the heart can no longer function as well. So it doesn't pump as much blood, which means you're not sweating as much, which means the heat damages the sweat glands, which means you're not sweating at all, which means you get hotter. And meanwhile, you're 104 degrees,

so your brain is boiling, basically. Cool. That's the like sort of shorthand diagnosis or like differential diagnosis between heat, exhaustion and heat stroke, right? Is your sweating a lot and then you stop, right? Yeah, and your skin gets really like hot. And your skin gets really hot to the touch because it's got this cascading effect is happening. So since 2000, 34 NCAA athletes

have died from heat related illness. I actually want to take a second to talk about that. This shit does not happen in the pros. Professional athletes don't die of this, and it's not because they train better at this and that it's because the people who are invested in their health know that their asses are on the line tail. And we can talk about that at some point, the power structures for college athletics versus professional athletics. But this is absolutely a whole episode about us.

Yeah, you could. And see the way episode was spent so hard, check it out. But yeah, they kill these kids because they don't care. They don't sit out to do it maliciously, but they don't care. It's not there. It's not there. Shit in the game.

In the grand hierarchy of experiments on animals, fresh dinner slightly below your link is killed 1200 freshman. Oh, no. How are we going to milk them for all their money? Yeah, do go ahead. Sorry for interrupting you. Yeah, no. How are we going to milk them for all their money? Yeah, do go ahead. Sorry, I forgot to interrupt. Yeah, no worries. So part of that, part of that cascading heat stroke effect is, as it gets worse, the

heart gets worse at pumping blood. And when cells don't get oxygen, they die very quickly. Like within a few minutes, right? So it leads to things we call like evascular necrosis where you've got tissue that isn't getting oxygen and it starts to die. It also typically, you can think of, there's another condition called, Repdomylysis, and you can think of it as like outside of this severity hierarchy. You can think of it like to the side of it directly next to heat fatigue and heat stroke.

What that is is it's essentially you can imagine, very bad. I like this lie that just as muscle soup. Yes. You're the way that they diagnose it is with a urine test searching for things called ketones. So essentially, yeah, your urine becomes muscle soup. This is really, really stressful on the liver and on the kidneys, because they're trying to clean out all of this muscle soup from your blood basically, and they have to work really hard. Another thing we're going to mention is heat stroke.

So how you fix it is you have to immediately cool the person because as we talked about, you have minutes to get their circulation restored. So how you diagnose that is you have to use cold water immersion, the second you suspect a heat stroke. And you have to use a rectal thermometer to diagnose when the core temperature is dropping. The reason being is that if you get an oral temperature or you get like one of those temperature guns, there's a lag between what your core temperature is and what the rest of it is. And that lag is especially pronounced when your heart's not

doing, your heart's not circulating, your blood, your oil. This is, this is all very fun. There's sort of like ways of tricking people who are trying to do first age, you know? What have? Yeah, and the characters of our story will get very tricked. I didn't know. The muscle soup thing is freaked me out. Hmm.

I mean, heat injury being deceptive and also very dangerous is cool. It's cool to think about, especially as we think about rising global temperatures and how every heat wave just wipes out a couple of thousand people. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, you get those wet bulb events where all excited for those that start happening. That's explaining that to somebody. Well, already happening in places, it's just unevenly distributed. You know, of course. Or you get like, this guy is orange, and you've got your coaches being like,

oh, you can go and practice whatever. You probably shouldn't do that. No, we'll get there. You want the next slide? Yes, please. Doing the Carl Sagan pale blue dot speech about this dot. Yes, yes, to the NCAA. We've said this.

Yes, yes. That's the NCAA. So. Actually, Liam, why don't you kind of go on like NCAA training rules for a second? Okay. kind of go on like NCAA training rules for a second. Okay, so I, so what I know is that basically there are times where you're allowed to practice and times where you're not allowed to practice and then there are times where it's optional. But in terms of the actual rule book, I don't really know.

I just know that when they're like, oh, it's a real rest day, no, it isn't. And these programs push these kids to their absolute limit in terms of, you know, it makes you a man. That sort of thing even more unpaid labor on top of your already unpaid labor. Right. We're talking like, if I recall that we were on discretionary time off when this event occurred. For the month leading up to it.

Okay. Okay. Sorry, my bed. Yeah. So basically there are off-season workouts. There's voluntary off-season workouts. And there's, you know, you have to be there. And basically these kids are especially in the culture of college. This is what I actually want to talk about. Like I said, I don't know the rule book verbatim, but as someone who has some experience in this, you are going to be pushed to your absolute limit. And the coaches are there basically to scream at you. And you know, they they will be fun. Yeah, we're just doing like Navy seal stuff. Okay. We're doing Navy seal stuff because it makes you a man it makes you a man house and that's what this was not good. Okay, masculinity and power dynamics. And basically, I just told the players have a good time.

They don't. I do. I do. I want to see. I want to go to a spoolsing event where everyone is having fun. Is that too much to ask apparently? Yeah, so what we had before the Jordan McNair disaster was basically straight the conditioning coaches were reported to the coaches and not to the athletic traders. So they're just the little minions of the coach. Oh, and this is a problem. Because every sport or this is a problem. Yeah, one more thing. This is a problem because every strengthening conditioning coach is insane.

Yes, I was going to say, I also like what our coaches do, it's like weird and appolly on it sort of tyrants. Yes, they are, they are fucking horrible as a rule. Strengthening conditioning coaches are extra that. They also make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to bully and kill teenagers. Cool. I think about. I think I've been put them down. I think about a guy called Felix Margat, who is a German football coach who is famously

called the last Dix Haeser in Europe because he was that guy like, he still is that guy. Every strength and conditioning coach is like this, where it's pure, you're gonna push your body until you collapse, no water. I don't know if we have it in the slide here specifically, but DJ Durk in the head football coach at Maryland who we'll get to is now regrettably on all Mrs. Staff. He said the heat makes fools of us all,

or he makes like we okay. It's just a do less than the heat then I guess. Exactly. That's the thing is that these guys simply don't give a shit. And again, we can talk about race and class and power dynamics. But these are white guys paid millions of dollars a year or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in Maryland's case. And they killed, and this is, you know, it's worth noting a black kid. And they, and, and at least Durkin got off more or less Scott Frey. Do you want to talk about Drew, what you, this, what is an athletic trainer slide?

Yeah, so, and also like, I went to a D1 college and worked for football as an athletic trainer, which is what we're going to talk about with the next slide, please. That was a smooth ass transition, Drew. That was good. Thank you. Yes. So, athletic trainers, we specialize in acute and rehabilitative care for athletes, which typically means we're at every practice or most practices. And it's our job to make sure

that like in these time critical scenarios that it doesn't get worse, right? Our job is to provide that immediate care that if you call EMS, it's too late. But by the time they get there. So we're talking sudden cardiac arrest or we're talking heat stroke. that. And then as a quick aside to that, we also work in high schools. I'm a high school athletic trainer. And I work at an inner city school. And most of my job is looking at something and saying, you don't need to go to the doctor for this. Because we've got kids who are like trying to, who are trying to get into college, trying to get a better life for themselves

and they can't really afford doctors a lot of times. So a lot of times in the high school setting, we kind of act as primary cares to a degree. It's interesting, this is a different field. And in Europe, I'm used to like a like a physio doing this, the stuff that like where you wouldn't have a doctor doing it, but it's still sports medicine, whether that sort of like doing like no,

you can't go back on or, you know, and any of the jokes that I ever make about sports medicine, which is like spraying stuff on people until they agree to stop playing football or whatever. Yeah, and we kind of exist as an artifact of how fucked the American healthcare system is, because for a lot of our kids we're the only person, we're the only healthcare that they can't afford and have access to. But that's the college that is. That's really bleak.

Just doing starship troopers, but for football, to be the only way you can get any of your... That you've seen by anyone is by playing this sort of concussion relapse. Yeah. I hit the serve in the football core games that essentially, I'm doing my part as you get tackled. But that's not really a, that's not really a factor in the collegiate setting because these college teams, especially

a big 10 team, have doctors on site or not on site, but on call. They have insurance through the school that they can go and the athletic trainers have connections with doctors where they can get them in on short notice, stuff like that. But also I want to talk about the one athletic training for a second. So how this works is you've got this hierarchy of, you've got the head athletic trainer whose job is mostly logistic, but they are also around for practices and treatments and stuff. And then you've got kind of assistant athletic trainers who are still certified athletic trainers, but they actually are the ones doing the work, right? work, right? And these are typically, typically how it goes is they'll have a athletic trainer and then they'll have graduate assistants who are still certified athletic trainers, but

they're just not getting paid. And then again, like a boundless resource of unpaid labor. Yeah, and then they'll pull, they'll pull students from the undergrad athletic training program. And they'll, they'll pull them into football and they'll say, oh yeah, we're gonna teach you how to do this and they'll look it on your resume and then you spend the whole season giving out water bottles.

I'm not better. It's unpaid labor all the way down to the bottom, maybe. It is, yeah, it is literally unpaid labor. It's a very bad culture. Yes. Also, as an aside, I wanted to say, as an ETC, you work in the college setting, or you work in the pro setting for the prestige as a high school trainer If you were to Normalize for the amount of hours that I spend doing my job and compare it to an NFL ATC or a college ATC

We make about the same Extremely exploitative yes, but hey if you like it looks good on the CV And then you can keep doing it so much you get kicked upstairs to just do the logistics and you organize all of the unpaid labor handing out the water bottles. Yeah. Yeah. I regret to inform you we probably need to pick up the pace a little bit here. Okay, sorry. You're fine. I just want to make sure Alice gets out. All right, this is my slide to talk about the University of Maryland's football program. Ham, Ham, why should I fucking exist? So one of the things I this is actually sort of gonna be just for sort of just for me.

Maryland has had a football program since 1892. That's 131 years and in that time they have one national title. That's 131 years and in that time they have one national title. So these schools exist basically for TV deals. These football programs is this for TV deals. Temple is no different. Records is no different. I want to talk about the fact that these schools, as we mentioned in the yesterday's video episode, make hundreds of millions of dollars off these TV deals.

The players see none of that money. It's I'm not even gonna bother talking about naming him in such a lightness, because that has nothing to do with this. So this kid is gonna die to feed the bloodlust of a program that, a program that shouldn't exist in the first place. I was negligent in killing him.

We should talk about college football at this point, probably shouldn't exist. Fuck Maryland, even mine, this is also the school that killed a girl because they had molded in her dorm back in 2018, 2019 and didn't give a shit until like three months later. Wow. Wow.

Dimonio at 18. This school is especially heinous. Colleges, you can check the college episode, but yeah, she had current disease and died of pneumonia at 18. And I just wanna talk for a second, let's talk about Maryland football and what it means to put your trust in these people then when you send your kid,

you put them in the care of these coaches and you trust that they're looking out for your kid, your baby, Jordan McNair was once the baby. I mean, this is like the promise any university gives you is that they're gonna like like act in local parenthesis Uh, and they killed him. They killed him. They didn't give a shit.

Capitalism, right? Yeah, I get very, very passionate about that. But uh, that's all right. Yeah, it's it's pure fucking molten evil. Uh, only your kids play sports. This is gonna be the capstone of this thing. But you trust your kids to these coaches

and then they kill your kid. And you know, you should, if you have children, if you're expecting children, that's what a thing. These skeptic go about the people that you trust them with. Because Jordan Bignair's parents trusted, Jordan could have gone to Alabama or a school with a legitimate football program

where they don't kill kids in Alabama. And still exploitative, but you will get out of it alive. He stayed home, he was a good kid, he stayed home, he's from Owingst Mills and Maryland, not too far from where I grew up. I remember him coming out of high school. He was an absolute monster and a lot of potential wasted

because these white guys in their 50s just don't give a shit next slide, please. Hi, it's Justin. So this is a commercial for the podcast that you're already listening to. People are annoyed by these, so let me get to the point. We have this thing called Patreon, right? The deal is you give us two bucks a month and we give you an extra episode once a month. Sometimes it's a little inconsistent but you know it's two bucks to get what you pay for. It also gets you our full back catalog of

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So these are our characters for today's story. On the left here, we have Rick Kort, who's the strength and conditioning coach from Maryland. Second to left is DJ Durkin, who's the head football coach. Why does this place look like it's been mirrored? I was about to say, yeah, it's sort of the, the portrait of a Dorya Gray, but he, he, he, he gains his power from killing teenagers. You'll notice he's wearing an old mispolo in this shirt because he has a job at all missed after he killed a kid. Wow. Come back story of the decade.

Second to right, we have Jordan McNair. He was highly recruited coming out of high school and he chose Maryland because presumably it was close to home. It was about an hour drive from his house. That's really heartbreaking as well. He was all USA, Maryland. He was Baltimore son, All Metro first. This kid could have, and probably would have gone pro. He was that talented.

I remember seeing him, close to him and in high school, and he could wreck. And it's this for what? And then on the far right, we have Wes Robinson. He is the head athletic trainer, the logistics guy I talked about. However, he was at practice this day. I would encourage you before we go to the next slide to see if you notice any significant difference between these four men. Yeah, it's not an accident.

It's not an accident. Next slide, please. If you are only doing audio and you are unable to pick up on the implication, all of them butt Jordan McNair are white. Okay. If you are only doing audio and you are unable to pick up on the implication, all of them butt Jordan McNaira White. Okay, so here we have a satellite image of the Maryland Sport Complex, I guess. So, before we talk about the workout, we have to talk about some pre-workout conditions. First off, Jordan was on vivants. It's a stimulant, which is used to treat ADHD, and stimulant use is a risk factor

for exertional heat stroke. May 4th through May 29th, which is about a month before this workout occurs, is discretionary time off. The NCAA is reducing, is enforcing reduced allowed activity loads. So basically they're only allowed to be with a coach for six hours a week at this time. Which is significant because these guys are spending eight hours a day, doing their sport.

They're not practicing it necessarily that whole time, but they're watching film. They're in meetings. They basically never leave this little building at the foot of the football field there. It's a black building. That's already kind of like concerning in itself. It's like a cold time atmosphere, you know? Yeah, well, there's so much money in it that they are not about to let them have free time or friends or anything. And that's how you come out of like at the other end of this, whether you go pro, you don't. You come out of this with like a degree or like an NFL career where you've made a lot

of money in a short time maybe, but you have like sort of no experience of like a huge swath of like any kind of human experience. Right. That is a nice major in general studies. Yeah. Criminal justice. You too can get a paper degree, but yeah, please go on, drop. But that's not the that's not the factor today for this for this month beforehand.

It was a discussionary time off. They were only allowed to be around for a reduced amount of time. And in that time, all athletes were emailed, work out expectations by Rick Court, the athletic or the strength and condition coach. It's, we don't actually know if Jordan followed them. He, there was, there wasn't really like a mechanism to require it other than the threat of When you come back on the first day we are running 10 100 meter or 110 meter sprints

I'm sorry 110 yard sprints, right? In the in the month leading up to this incident, April 27th through May 29th, Jordan had gone from 328 pounds to 341 pounds, he had gained 10 And this incident would happen on the first day back Other factors is the main football stadium, which is where they were planning on practicing, was unavailable due to construction. So they had a backup plan to practice

in this white building to the south, the field house. That's significant because they probably have a tiny athletic training room in there where they could get out water and they could easily set up for practice in there, if that makes sense. So at the last minute, the university dropped the ball and said, actually, you have to practice on the practice court that is to the east

of the main athletics building. Is that this one here? The one to the the one to the east of that. Oh, I see this one here. Yeah. Okay. So basically instead of just pulling stuff out of storage in the field house, they are loading up coolers and whatnot in this black building.

And they are ferrying them out, which is going to result in less are loading up coolers and whatnot in this black building and they are ferrying them out, which is going to result in less preparedness from athletic training stuff, if that makes sense. It was 80 degrees on the field that day and that was the weather, like, weather report temperature. There's no, they don't provide a wet bulb from that day. But if you've ever been on a turf field, and 80 degrees, it's not fun. It adds about 10 degrees, standing on one of those turf fields. For 20, 26 degrees, and then being on turf field like 36 degrees Jesus.

The reason being is like the padding that a turf field is is black rubber. Or at least it was before the last few years when things are kind of changing about that. It's the like layer of like dead worms underneath it. Cool. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So basically any I've been on turf fields in 80 degrees, whether doing water and stuff, it is hellish. It's miserable. Okay, so the practice. There were five certified ATCs. Most of these were probably graduate assistants and five undergrad student ATCs who were doing, I'm sorry, an ATC as an athletic trainer. Five students who are probably just doing water, right?

The workout starts at 4.13 pm with flexibility and dynamic warmups. This is normal, that's ideal. They take about 30 minutes to do that. And then, at 438 PM, May 29th, 2018, the players lineup to begin the testing part of the workout. Which is sprints, right? Which is 10, 110 yard sprints.

Jordan McNair weighs 340 pounds. His job is to block not to run. Yeah, and he is expected to run 110 yard runs with 19 seconds. That's a long way to run if you're if you're that big because you're that big because you're an offensive lineman and that's your whole job. All of these time prints that I'm going to give from here on out are pretty exact because there was a report filled by the commission by the university into this event and they use the practice film for this to line up times for everything was happening. So Jordan is successfully completes the first seven and then on the end of it, on the eighth he's unable to complete.

So in the video he is struggling with the sets and his teammates run back from theirs to help him complete the sprints or just like, come on you got this stuff like that. He's unable to finish and he goes to get help from the assistant certified athletic trainer. So the second, second and command guy in the like athletic training hierarchy there. Around this time, the head athletic trainer is getting an inhaler for another kid. I think on the other side of the field or on the end zone or something, and he looks across the field to see his athletic trainer or his assistant helping Jordan with cramping, and he yells, drag his ass across the field. That will be important later.

Grus, that's not good. No, no. There are reasons why you would want to keep somebody moving. They're less likely to cramp if they are walking and like doing active recovery. And that is encouraged in this program. However, he didn't necessarily need to be so callous. And to be very clear, the head athletic trainer is not aware of the whole situation. He just kind of sees it over his shoulder and yells, drag his ass across the field.

And that's the line that like becomes sort of like a shorthand for the whole program, right? We'll get there. But yes. Jordan at this time is hyperventilating and cramping. a shorthand for the whole program, right? We'll get there, but yes. Jordan at this time is hyperventilating and cramping. Neither, there are two certifies working with him at that time and neither of them report noticing an elevated skin temp. It's likely that in that hierarchy I showed you earlier, he's currently sitting at about heat cramp or heat exhaustion ranges. A lot of

these conditions present alongside each other. The assistant athletic trainer, Kering for Jordan, then decides this isn't getting better. We have to take him to the main trading room at Gosset Hall, which is the black building at the foot of the football stadium. So he loads him up in their gator and he takes them over there. The head athletic trainer sees them do that and he starts sprinting across the field and meets and basically gets there just behind the cart. Now, time between his onset of symptoms to being transported is 34 minutes, which... That's a long time. Is very unexplainable. It doesn't make much sense why you would take 34 minutes to make this decision, if that

makes sense. Sure. Right. It's probably complacency or kind of the culture. Next slide, please. So this is the Maryland Athletic Training Room at Gosset Hall. It is now 526 that the Assistant Athletic Trainer uses his card to buzz into the door, The assistant athletic trainer uses his card to buzz into the door, which is about 35-ish minutes after the initial event. Wayne Robinson, the head athletic trainer, follows them in and instructs his subordinates to put Jordan in the recovery position and begin cooling with ice towels. Due to hierarchies of how this works, this is now Wayne's case. 20 minutes after entering Gosset Hall at 5.50 pm.

So 50 minutes out from the initial symptoms. Jordan's mental state abruptly changes. He begins yelling at athletic trainers. And Wayne notices this and instructs his assistant to call 911. Yeah, because that's like a major like, when notices this and instructs his assistant to call 911. Yeah, because that's like a major like sort of heat exhaustion. It's been right. Yeah.

Up until that point, they probably thought that he just had heat exhaustion. And they were cooling him adequately for that expectation. However, this treatment still isn't good up until that point and I'll explain why. Later. However, this treatment still isn't good up until that point and I'll explain why. Later, the assistant decides to call the team physician instead of EMS. And the head ATC had to instruct him to call EMS again. The assistant complied, but five minutes were lost in this.

And while the assistant was in that that five minutes Jordan had a seizure. Oh, Jesus Christ. Ooh. AT staff positioned him into a side recovery position and they provided supplementary oxygen. But unfortunately they didn't have access to an ice tub or else this situation probably would have ended differently. Next slide please. If they had ended it differently if he had survived, they did have a nice tub. This is the ice tub in that in that facility. Sorry, please continue.

My question was just if the if he had survived with sort of like no serious lingering consequences off of this, would we even know about it? No. Honestly, how often does this happen to where they get away with it and it's just like part of the normal run of things? Actually, I can't say that. I don't have the research. Sorry. More common than it should be.

Right. So, they should have put them in a nice nice tub but at this point it's too late right? Not too late to cool him but he's now in an altered state of consciousness and is recovering from a seizure. He weighs 340 pounds and the athletic training staff in there with him right now there's two or three people they're not going to be able to get him into a tub. If he has another seizure, prevent him from drowning. He should have gone in the cold tub immediately

when they entered the facility is what I'm saying. While he still had normal consciousness, if you've ever worked a heat stroke case, which I have, the altered state of consciousness typically makes people violent because you're doing things to them that is uncomfortable, right? You're using erectile thermometer, you're putting them in a cold tub, you're putting ice towels on their neck, stuff like that. So it's very common for people having heatstroke to try to fight the people taking care of them, if that makes sense.

Sure. Yeah. They're still cooling him with ice cold towels and ice packs to the groin. It is now 6, 10 p.m. an hour after an hour and 10 minutes after the initial event and the ambulance arrives on scene. Oh nice nice that that keeping the sort of like degree of urgency that we want, you know. Yeah. It still took them 20 minutes, but yeah. West and as assistants stress the need to continue cooling while in the ambulance and they're allowed to ride along. They continue cooling efforts with cold towels and ice to the groin while the ambulance staff are running an IV.

They arrive at the hospital at 636, which is 88 minutes after he initially started showing symptoms. Jesus Christ. Please, next slide, please. So 88 minutes after initial symptoms, he arrives at the hospital. And this is where I reveal that at no point during this process, did the athletic training staff get a temperature for Jordan. What the fuck?

Wow. What the fuck, dude? Wait, so the one like actual way of determining the difference between heat exhaustion and heat strictly just didn't do? Just didn't bother. Yes. At the hospital, his core body temperature was 106 degrees. Now if you have a patient who has got 200 pounds on you and the thought of doing a rectal test or thermometer on them is not very appealing while they're trying to fight you, right?

However, they never got an oral temp. They never used the little heat gun thermometer thing. They just never got a temperature for him. So he gets to the hospital and immediately they cool him down at the hospital, right? The head-eth electric trainer stayed overnight at the hospital with Jordan, and he was texting his parents. His parents had drove down when they learned of the situation, but obviously it was too stressful for them to be there. So, Wes had stayed and was giving them regular updates. Um, on June 3rd, I'm sorry, on June 1st,

which is three days after the incident. Jordan had to undergo an emergency liver transplant because 85% of his liver had become necrotic as a result of inadequate cooling, basically. On June 12th, so 11 days later, he was pronounced to be brain dead and he died a day later. The Heather Athletic Trainer was at the hospital the whole time regularly sending back like status updates to Jordan's parents. And after his death, some of Jordan's teammates reached out to them and told them that the student athletes had heard Wes Robinson yell, drag his ass across the field while he was recovering.

So at this point, Jordan's parents cut all contact. What's the difference? What's the difference? What's the difference? It shows up to his funeral and Jordan's dad walks up to him and firmly tells him that he needs to leave. Understandable. You helped kill my kid, like, yeah.

Next slide, please. So, oh, that didn't come out good. So, at this point, I'd like to state, or I'd like to kind of express that we wouldn't know a lot of this if it hadn't been for ESPN. ESPN gets wind of this story and they are widely reporting on it. It's a town, I remember that. It was, this was a huge story. It's so much so that both reports into this event, there were two, are probably directly results of ESPN's pressure that they had put on the program just by reporting on this. Sports journalism makes a difference sometimes. Yeah, genuinely.

They had done an initial report. And that's basically what I just read to you. The ESPN ran another one saying that there was a culture problem at the program that had made this event worse. Quote from that interview from one of the players, one of his former teammates had said, it shows a cultural problem that Jordan knew that if he stopped, they would challenge his manhood, he would be targeted. He had to go until he couldn't. And again, like in order to play football,

and in order to like play football in a role that doesn't really require you to do anything like that athletically. Right. Yeah, his job is to prevent people from walking past him. Like, right. You wait. If you're running 110 yards, which is the length of a football field, roughly, and you, I can assure you that you have not done your job as a offensive line. No.

Next slide. So the, the, the, the tactical vision of that of that is, yeah, no, not great. Right. So this reporting leads to pressure on the football program that leads to the second investigation into this. This was a independent report commission by the university. Yeah, I read some of this. They were really running this like sort of like Marine Bootcamp. Like very, very strange sort of hazing stuff happening. It is now August 11th, which is about, well, this happened on May 29th, so a couple months out. This report alleged widespread abuse present in the football program.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get the report to really work for me to read it. However, I would like to just read the table of contents really quick for you. Specific allegations of coaching and other staff misconduct. Rick court alleged to choke injured player with a lat pull down bar in weight room. Oh boy. Wates and other items thrown across that foot or across training room weight room. Warning, tugs of war. Food knocked from players' hands.

Player compelled to eat candy bars. Player compelled to eat until vomiting. Players exposed to graphic videos while eating. Player removed from meeting for smiling. Verbal abuse of player during practice. Players being forced to exercise on a stair-stepber machine with a PVC pipe. Player complained of bullying to Mr. Durkin. Quote on quote, the champions club.

Oh, there an athletic booster club at the University of Maryland. Who at one point I believe that a member basically blamed McNair for his own death saying if he had drank the water he would have been fine. Jordan didn't do what Jordan was supposed to do. So that guy specifically should fire himself into orbit. I hope he has a very nice time. So at this point after this report comes out, Rick Court and DJ Durkin, who had been an administration leave, were fired. I'm sorry, I missed something in that West Robinson had been fired after the first road park came out. Okay, where are we now?

Or where are they now? Well, we're kind of despair, I would say, is how we feel. Yeah. Next slide, please. So, this slide is kind of a recap on kind of where people are now, right? So Rick Court, who's the Strength and Condition Coach is currently coaching at Greenville High School, which is a tiny town, 7,000 population or so. Oh, cool.

So he's in like football coach witness protection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's done at least. I guess, but he's still coaching like, oh, don't worry. You're doing it. You're doing it. It's coaching it all. But it's small enough and rural enough that they think killing a kid is good. I was going to say that's like, this is some shit that like you would think about your PE teacher when you're a kid is like, oh man, he's a real asshole. Where did he come from? You'd like find out that

it's because he's killed in hiding because he killed a kid. Yeah. So on Rick Cork's professional website, he has all of the institutions he's coached at listed there except from Maryland. You didn't see anything. I definitely didn't kill a kid. Yeah, D.J. Durkin, the head coach is currently coaching at Ole Miss. They got to fail it upward then. Yeah, he's not the head coach, but yes. He's a offensive coach, I think. Um,

Wes Robinson, he was fired from his job as an athletic trainer, but he was still a PT and he continues to be a PT with University of Maryland. And then about a month after Jordan's death, his parents, Tonya Wilson and Marty McNair, founded the Jordan McNair Foundation. So this program is a program where Marty and Tonya, they go around the kind of New England area and they teach, they give talks on heat safety for athletics, basically. In January 2021, University of Maryland paid a $3.5 million settlement to Jordan's parents. A lot of that settlement is

like things for the Jordan McNair Foundation. So season tickets that they can give to donors stuff like that. And they also need a classroom after him, I think. That's so little consider. Yeah. like that. And they also named a classroom after him, I think. That's so little, consider. Yeah. Yeah, especially considering that this story was as big as it was. And also like, there's an interview that I had watched from from this event where the, I

think it was the president of university came out in an interview and basically said it was a press release said we dropped the ball on this this is our fault. We're going to do whatever we the kind of thing that should like start with ending the program and instead it becomes like oh great you can take your afternoon class at the Jordan McNam Memorial classroom. Exactly. And I think what's very telling about that is you never see upper like, upper people at a university taking responsibility. So you know how bad this is. Right. So yeah, part of it is like after Jordan collapsed, there was an hour gap before they even called EMS. And they had never grabbed temperature and it's like, what are, what are they even doing, you know? Man's low survival side, but what do I know? I did want to say that I misspoke earlier. There has been a fatality at least 2001. I don't know if there's been any since, I don't think so. Cory Stringer died at a Minnesota Vikings trading cap. Similar. And then the Vikings

defense was that well his locker was full of dietary supplements. Every football player is taking like fucking 500 things because they told to yes because all of that coach is a steroid guys but they can't get them on steroids necessarily. So they get them on like fucking, you got to take the like, you know, beetle testicles or whatever the fuck, because it's going to, you know, imbu you with aggression and like fucking some half remembered sports science shit. Right. Yeah. And like, especially sports supplements must have been a factor here. It just isn't reported in the reports, but like, you're right.

A lot of there's a lot of pressure to be doing these types of things. And the sports supplement industry is not regulated. No. Um, so you put it in there and they do. Yeah, I was about to say, the FDA just has no jurisdiction. Yeah, you can put anything in there. Funnily enough, that brings us back full circle. That's why Gaserate is called that is because it allowed it not to be regulated by the FDA as a medication.

They want to spell it aid AID and they realized that was more, more regulations. So they saw it ADE like a soda. Yeah, and who knows what the fuck's in gay parade, right? Zeeber testicles. I noticed that yeah, like, pangolin teeth. Like, shit. All of the most endangered parts of the most endangered animals are just like, squished down and liquefied, and you like douse your coach in it when you win. Right.

Yeah. When you get sued by Gatorade? No. It's just like radioactive looking green dye they put in like fucking saltwater. It sucks. Love, kid or a love, kid or a. Um, let's wrap this up. I know that we're bumping up all the time crunch.

Sure. Um, I guess before we go, I just wanted to say like, what do we take from this? This is. Van color football and color football. Destroy the NCAA. Uh, double A. I see this is the thing when I, collage football. Destroy the NCAA. Uh, double. I see this is the thing when I, I, I'm so used to the NCAA, that I say NCAA for the NCAA and that makes it sound racist when I, college football is, yeah, destroy college football is my point.

Yeah. Um, this is a systemic issue and college football. Like this is not as much as I focused on individual characters. This is not specifically DJ Durkin or Rick Cora or West Robinson that did this. This is the fundamental structure of college ball that uses these athletes and then throws them away. And there was not, there was no care from the coaching staff for the people or for their athletes. Kind of before we go, I'd like to kind of remind that this was the first day of practice. Mm-hmm. Um, it was 80 degrees on a turf field and they had 350 pound kids running 110 yard sprints

in 16 seconds. Totally unnecessary. 16 seconds. Totally unnecessary. The practice that kills you instantly. Yeah, it takes away the practice that kills you slowly. Well, it's probably over here recently. There's no consequences for it. Yeah, and there's no meaningful consequences for it. These people should be in fucking prison.

Yeah, the practice that kills you instantly would be like, if you did that, you had planted landmines, you know, instead just like Prism abolition, but these guys go last. And then as the last decide, I would encourage any listeners interested in this incident to watch the ESPN doc that just came out a couple weeks ago called the Freedom Within. It follows the head athletic trainer and kind of his journey kind of dealing with the guilt that he killed a kid, right? And Wes Robinson is now affiliated with the Jordan McNair Foundation and he goes to their talks and participates in them. That's good.

Fire Rick Cored, DJ Dirk, and into the fucking sod. Mm-hmm, yeah, and college football. And college football, we've had enough. We will, I think we'll include a link to the Jordan McNair Foundation in the show description if that's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So on that happy note, next slide, please. No safety, because we're really close.

We got to have jokes here. No jarring shift of tone, but you know, go home. Like it's, it's over. It's not over. Comedy podcast. Yeah. All right. Call it. Our next episode will be on Chernobyl. Does anyone have any commercials before we go? Just the Jordan MacGerah foundation. We don't need to. Yeah. It's not really a foundation. Yeah. All right. Well, I was depressing episode. Bye. All right, well, I was a depressing episode.

Bye.