Posted on 04/10/2008 8:10:04 PM PDT by NonValueAdded
UCF football player Ereck Plancher showed signs of distress during "mat drill" workouts last month before he collapsed and later died, four of Plancher's UCF teammates told the Orlando Sentinel.
Plancher, a 19-year-old receiver from Naples, was taken to a hospital on March 18 and was pronounced dead about an hour after the drills.
A preliminary autopsy was inconclusive. Further tests are under way to determine the cause of Plancher's death.
The UCF players, who asked for anonymity because they fear retribution from football coaches, said Plancher's final practice was more intense than the basic conditioning workout described by UCF officials.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
ping
That's irrelevant. This guy obviously had some unknown health problem.
I don’t see how the coaches were at fault.
And if they are found to be at fault then all sports should be outlawed, because the description of what happened is the description of every single workout for every major sport both male and female on the college level, as well as the high school level, and worst on a professional level.
If there’s any truth to the description of the workout, the coaches are toast. Sorry but this wouldn’t be the first kid with an unknown health problem. With early season workouts in the unseasonably warm temps we’ve had in Central Florida, it was completely predictable, albeit in hindsight. The teammates also should have shouted out, “hey coach, I don’t think he’s faking it.” Were there no trainers on the field, no pre-workout briefing then or previously on signs of heat stroke and other forms of distress? Nope, we need an urban flood warning for all the saliva flowing from the local lawyers hearing this.
You are right about that. Still, I think this kid would have died no matter what kind of practice they had. He had some issues that were going to happen with physical activity, it was obviously only a matter of time. If not during practice, it would have happened during a game or some other time like working out. It's so terribly sad. No one should die at such a young age. I feel for his parents.
How do you think he would have done at Marine Corp Boot Camp?
It could have been dehydration. And as for the account by the coaches, George O'Leary is the infamous resume padder.
UFC ping
Sounds like Sickle Cell Trait to me.
Sorry for this athlete’s death. Not the coaches fault either...
As long as we keep the illusion that college football is amateur, the coaches will be held to a higher standard of care. I'm pretty sure that will happen here, especially since it is a state school.
wow.....just wow
The player said after he recovered enough to go back to his room, he still was too ill to walk or go eat. He said the team totally abandoned him, gave him no help at all except for his room-mate who brought him food etc.
When he got well enough, he phoned Steve Spurrier at Florida and asked if he would give him a scholarship. Spurrier told him to come on down and he would be on scholarship. He said Spurrier and the Florida staff were like night and day in their treamtment of the players, compared to O'Leary.
If he had sickle cell I’m pretty sure it would have been known and he wouldn’t have been playing football.
I didn’t read the entire article, but although the coaches might not have any criminal culpability, they could still be in hot water (with the NCAA) for simply being present at off-season workouts.
There are supposed to be NO coaches present—all off-season workouts are (nudge, wink) ‘voluntary’.
At the risk of sounding like the old ex-jock that I am....
OH MY GOD!
Football players at every level in every town, city, county and state in this great country have been doing drills like this in intense heat for many many years, and coaches push them farther than the players ever could by themselves.
That’s football. The players know it.
OK, here I go: When I was a player, coaches didn’t allow us to have water during practice—we had to tough it out. That’s the way it was. Practiced twice a day, full-contact, in 100+ degree weather, 100% humidity in the middle of august, Lincoln Nebraska. NO water til after practice. NO rest stops. NO breaks to catch our breath.
That’s just the way it was. These guys, as tremendous athletes as they are now (far better than we ever were) have no idea how tough it was 30 years ago. I know I can’t imagine how tough the guys in the 40’s and 50’s had it compared to us!
We’re a country of namby-pambys. (I think that’s a word, but if it isn’t, it means P*SSIES!!!)
Three problems with blaming the coaches:
1. Planchard was a Florida boy. No acclimatizing needed here
2. Temperature that day was 68 degrees. I wouldn’t be surprised if some had jackets on
3. It’s been over a month and the cause of death has not been determined. I don’t even think they’ve given a *preliminary* cause of death has been issued
The military is very careful about hydration, even back in the mid 70s. We were regularly doused with showers every couple hours during Airborne Training and plenty of opportunities to drink water.
O’Leary will keep his job only for as long as the school can maintain a position that the football staff did noting wrong. This will only br in an attempt to minimize legal liability. When they finally come to the point where liability can no longer be denied, they will cut him and his staff loose.
O’Leary will never get another coaching job at any level.
Not allowing water during practice wasn’t being tough it was just plain stupid. Bear Bryant in his book admitted he had done some dumb things in his early days. He said he just didn’t know any other way at the time. I doubt he ever got soft but some things are just foolish.
You may be referring to Sickle Cell Anemia. Sickle Cell Trait is a related malady that, rerely, causes the death of athletes Usually, the cause of death is heart arrest, caused by SC Trait...
So I assume that someone with sickle cell trait would be cleared to play football with little or no extra risk. It still seems to me that coaches should be on the look out for dehydration symptoms, and that someone with sickle cell trait would be more susceptible. It’s too early to make conclusions, either to assume a medical problem, or to clear the coaches.
Of course you’re right, it is stupid. It’s just the way it was.
By the way, I’m still not too old to be happy that I helped beat the Bear’s Crimson Tide in Lincoln in 1977, when they were very highly-ranked. It was a great sports moment for me.
I actually had the priveledge and thrill to go to lunch with Keith Jackson last year. We talked about lots of cool sports stuff he was directly involved with over his amazing career. And we talked about that 1977 Husker/Tide game, and he remembered it well. He said Bear Bryant and Tom Osborne were 2 of his favorite coaches of all time, and he shared several fun memories of the game (he did the play-by-play on national TV for ABC, along with Frank Broyles). Amazing he had a recollection of it, since he’d done hundreds and hundreds.
Anyway, maybe the best part of this memory you’ve conjured for me is that a couple guys from one of NU’s frats stole Bear’s famous houndstooth hat! Right off his head, as he walked (angrily) through hundreds of pandemonious Husker fans—accompanied by 2 state troopers no less—to the center of the field to shake Coach Osborne’s hand!
The famous hat still allegedly occupies a place of honor in the front room of this particular frat house in Lincoln, enshrined in glass along with a picture one of the bros took of the deed occurring!
So thanks for the Bear Bryant reference—brought back a fun memory!
lol
Not true. Check this story about Ryan Clark from the Steelers.
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"Freak thing" doesn't begin to describe what happened in Denver, not more than a couple of days after Clark's wife, Yonka, joked to him, "Hey, why don't you come back with your spleen intact this time?"
When he previously had played in Denver while with the Washington Redskins, Clark had been diagnosed with a spleen contusion following the game.
Turns out he was misdiagnosed.
And, just like in 2005, the high altitude in Denver, coupled with the sickle-cell trait that Clark has, caused his blood to sickle during the Steelers' Oct. 21 game against the Broncos.
His blood vessels burst this time, Clark said, and the resulting loss of oxygen to his spleen killed parts of it.
"Once it died," Clark said, "bacteria said, 'Hey, that's a good place to go chill.'"
Clark felt well enough after the Steelers' 31-28 loss to the Broncos to call his wife, which always has been his post-game ritual.
But Yonka Clark later got a call from one of his teammates who said Clark had to be taken off the team bus and whisked away to a hospital because he had been experiencing such discomfort. That turned out to be only the beginning of their harrowing ordeal. The worse Clark felt after he returned to Pittsburgh the more, it seemed, the battery of tests he took showed that nothing was wrong with him. "I was trying to be really respectful of the doctors and the trainers, and they tell you that you're going to be OK and sometimes I was kind of made to feel like I was milking it," Clark said. "I'm sure that wasn't their intentions, but they were talking to me like 'You're really OK. I don't know why you feel like you can't do certain things.' "
Snip
Frustrated and scared, Clark sought another opinion in the middle of November. When he told the doctor about his symptoms, Clark immediately was sent to the hospital.
He had his spleen removed after an infection was discovered -- the operation took more than four hours because his spleen was in such bad shape -- and a couple of weeks later his gall bladder came out, too.
Many black athletes have Sickle Trait and play sports all their lives. It is rare for there to be problems but it does happen. An early symptom is leg cramps. Not all cramps are Sickle Trait6 related though.
I am sad to say that my school lost a promising young athlete in 1985 due to Sickle Trait. FSU lost one a few years back.
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