"Central Michigan University has fired long-time and highly decorated women's gymnastics coach Jerry Reighard after a lengthy internal investigation into allegations he urged an athlete to provide false information to school medical staff in order to participate in competition.
The athlete was urged to "lie about or cover up" concussion symptoms, the university said in announcing the firing Thursday morning."
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Good. I have seen this firsthand with two athletes (my daughter and a teammate) being encouraged by her now-former coach to swim through their conference meet and to minimize their symptoms. The coach also told them to come to him, not their AT (and their "AT" is not very good; he's a trainee, but he reports to a real AT), with certain complaints. He's in the MAC. Perhaps word of this event will get to him before he does more damage to his athletes. Interesting that it took many years' of complaints to get this guy fired.
The days of, "Are you good to go back in, kid? You are? Attaboy!" are hopefully in the rear mirror. God knows how many I played through- it wasn't till I was in my late 40's and going back into coaching that I finally was educated by my sports associations about concussions.
A concussion is a brain injury.
One of those things that you have to wonder how a team can provide medical care and not be conflicted about putting players into competition. Football in particular is replete with horror stories of "shooting up" to get back on the field. No doubt plenty of good care out there - but at high levels with high stakes the temptation is high.
Watching Earl Campbell walk around ought to be mandatory for all 18 year old athletes so they understand that pain, dizziness etc. is not to be ignored.
I agree. The whole celebration in sports of playing through pain and injury is a bad thing. Guys who play through injuries are considered tough and guys who take a break with injuries that are not literal tears or broken bones are considered soft. You see that in nba a lot were people citing jordan playing with fewer or ewing with terrible knees and guys like fultz are accused of simulating being hurt.
And the problem is not just coaches and fans many players themselves take tremendous pride playing through pain and there is pressure of teammates to "suck it up".
Fortunately this is changing a little. Coaches and managers used to try to squeeze any bit of value out of players until they break but now especially in mlb players are big multi year investments now and thus teams are sitting guys a few days with minor ailings to keep them fresh long term.
I see a little conflict here and another post. What about how good Old School Coaching is? You know, no pain no gain, you gotta hurt a little to be a good, you'll feel better with a W? I'm not for this but this goes with that old school coaching mentality just like the yelling and abuse on another thread. How is it okay to be a good coach and be FIRM with players even to the extent of abuse but not be okay to tell a player to play through it? We preach everyone should have the player's best interest at heart but that is not always the case. This become a touchier subject when you add in the fact that today's kids are just not as tough as they used to be. They grew up on the couch rather than playing all day outside. Plus many have learned that if they complain a little about being hurt they will not have to continue to go through training. There is a fine line between making them tough and hurting them. I don't think a player should ever be encouraged to play through pain in any situation, even if you think they are lying. I don't know how many arms began to hurt after they gave up a home run but I always pulled them. I do see the Old School mindset still thinks players can play through a little pain, which could be a major concussion like we did back in the DAY.
PFan - I think there is a difference between a tight hammy and a sore elbow in a baseball player. One is a cause for immediate concern of long term (life altering) injury and the other will pass. So pain vs. injury is a real debate but a different and more serious problem is care for those injuries and who is giving it.
Honestly if you address the care issue I think the pain vs. injury usually sorts itself out pretty easily most of the time.
Players want to play almost all the time. It is the job of parents (in HS & below) care giver, coach in that order to determine playing time once an injury occurs. I know this will be controversial but I believe coaches should have very limited influence on this - they are not qualified unless they are medically trained and I never saw one that was. The care giver should be at the discretion of the parents and whose opinion is guiding the decision should be the families and no one else's.
Once a player reaches college things change. But until then it is the legal imperative and morally correct process for the parents to make decisions of this nature.
As for coach - if he feels like he's got a player dogging it in practice faking injuries - the bench is a nice place to put him after he refers him to his parents for medical care. See that whole string about coach puts hands on player and got arrested. This is an extension of that. Don't push things - be cautious - it is part of the job now.
There is a difference between hurt and injured. Some people have trouble differentiating the two. Nobody should ever have to play injured, but where do you draw the line? If your arm is sore and two doctors say there is nothing wrong, what do you do as a coach? If a player has a sprained ankle, how long should he be missing? Can a kid play with a broken finger? There are a ton of ailments that are pretty ambiguous when it comes to recovering (shin splints, tendonitis, bone bruises, etc.). Sometimes you have to play hurt. Sometimes you need to rest. If their ailment will prevent them from playing adequately and without pain, then don't do it. But if you can get out there and still perform without making the problem worse then I don't see a reason not to.
I will never defend a coach running injured players out onto the field. But I also have a hard time sympathizing with the kid who is on week 3 of his stiff hip or his tight hamstring. It works both ways, at a certain point enough is enough. Herm Edwards caught a lot of slack when he arrived to ASU and cut players who had not played in 2 years there. If there is no game film to watch and they could not practice he had no clue if they were any good or not. I think that sent a pretty strong message to the team. Sports are physical, sometimes you have to be physical as well.
