Trouble in Oregon
On Monday we all got word that a groundbreaking lawsuit was being filed on behalf of two former athletes from the University of Oregon. If you haven’t read about it yet it can be found here.
Doug Brenner and Sam Poutasi have filed suit for almost 126 MILLION DOLLARS against the University of Oregon, Willie Taggart, and The NCAA for pain and suffering and damages stemming from a string of training sessions at the University of Oregon that landed both of them in the hospital. The training sessions were so intense that it gave the athletes something called rhabdomyolysis. The plaintiffs allege that the kidney damage they got from the training session has caused damages, pain and suffering, loss of quality of life and loss of actual life (they state that they have had about 10 years shaved off their life expectancy due to the training session) to the tune of 2,500 times the average yearly family income here in the US. The outcome of this particular suit is going to be huge, and could set a precedent that could legitimately bankrupt college athletics. We’re going to talk about that now.
Let’s Start at the Beginning
Back in 2017 Willie Taggart was hired by the University of Oregon to be the head coach of their football team. He had a great track record at The University of South Florida and had turned their program around completely. They went from a 2-10 program, to being ranked in the top 25 for the first time in years. There were a ton of universities throwing all kinds of money at him in an effort to woo him to their programs and Oregon won out. Apparently the culture at Oregon had suffered over the years and they needed the new staff to come in and create an environment of hard work and accountability again.
You see, when football coaches go to new programs they often bring their entire staff with them, or at least what they deem to be the most important pieces of the puzzle. This situation was no different and Willie Taggart brought his director of strength and conditioning from USF and his name is Irele Oderinde. He had been on staff with Taggart for almost the entirety of his career so Willie decided to bring his right hand man along with him. They were together at South Carolina, Western Kentucky, USF and Taggart even brought him with him when he accepted the head coach position at Florida State University after leaving Oregon. Strength coaches are often tied at the hip to their head football coach, and will travel all over the country with them as they climb the ladder of success. This is one of the reasons it’s so hard to make it in NCAA strength and conditioning.
When Taggart arrived at Oregon he came into a culture that wasn’t conducive to success anymore. They had fallen from the highs of the mid 2000’s and early 2010’s and were looking to change the culture back to one of winning. A lot of times when this happens coaches feel that they need to ensure “mental toughness” and team mentality, and when they arrive in the Winter there is no football practice so this falls on the strength and conditioning coach. Winter workouts are hard, and often include early (530am early) morning conditioning in an effort to make these kids more disciplined. Oddly enough, training at this time is actually detrimental to performance and leads to lack of sleep, and the throwing off of one’s circadian rhythm which decreases performance. But who gives a shit about that when we’ve gotta be mentally tough? Why put these athletes in the best possible position to succeed when we can just make their training sessions harder just for the sake of making them harder? Never mind the fact that there are books worth of data to show that “mental toughness” training DOES NOT work.
One important fact to help set the table here: Irele Oderinde does not have a background in exercise physiology nor does he have a legitimate certification in the field of physical preparation. Here’s a list of his credentials:
Bachelor’s Degree in Recreation Management from Western Kentucky
Master’s Degree in Sport Management from Western Kentucky
USA Weightlifting Certification
Two Day Course
Not a terrible certification to hold IF you’ve also been certified by the NSCA or CSCCA
Anyone over the age of 18 can get this certification
US Track and Field - Certified Strength Coach
Anyone over the age of 18 can get this certification
21 hour online course (less than 3 work days)
National Association of Speed and Explosion - Certified Speed Specialist
I have never in my life heard of this certification
It’s marketed towards high school sport coaches and personal trainers if that tells you anything
The above can mean very little as I know coaches in this field who are no longer certified, or don’t have an education in exercise physiology who are GREAT coaches. The issue is that this man had neither, and was a director at a Power Five University. This is legitimately the pinnacle of the industry, and in my opinion there should be a few more barriers to entry at this level (honestly at every level, but especially at the top). This is important to understand moving forward.
Who Can Be A Strength and Conditioning Coach?
Literally anyone. You only need a degree (literally any degree) and you can sit for your Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist national board exam. But here’s the thing, although Oderinde held a masters degree which allowed him to sit for this legitimate certification he either chose not to or more than likely failed when he attempted to pass it. This happens often with strength and conditioning coaches at the university level and there are even some rumors that Coach Scott Cochran of Alabama fame could not pass the exam and that’s why he’s a special teams coach at Georgia now. Imagine having the most prestigious job in ALL of strength and conditioning and getting paid half a million dollars a year yet you cannot pass the exam that proves you have the BARE MINIMUM knowledge to perform that job. It’s insane.
If you think that at the NCAA level you have to hold a legitimate certification you’re wrong. You need a degree (ANY degree), and a certification (ANY certification). Can you imagine going to get a job as surgeon and the only barriers to entry are having a mass communications degree and a 16 hour/two day certification? And in this case people thinking you’re good at your job simply because you’ve undergone a bunch of surgeries yourself? Like you’ve had 10 surgeries on your own body performed by someone else and THAT’S justification for why you’re qualified to do that job that takes years of experience and education? This is what happens at the NCAA level as far as strength and conditioning is concerned. Oderinde was a former football player who had a garbage certification and two degrees that gave him zero knowledge on how to program and coach yet he was the director at a Power Five school. Now I don’t blame Oderinde for taking a position that was offered to him, I blame Taggart, Oregon and the NCAA for allowing this kind of thing to happen. Believe it or not the lawsuit doesn’t even include Oderinde because although he put these kids through those workouts, it wasn’t his fault that he was allowed to do this. The NCAA has created an environment where under/unqualified coaches are allowed to have unfettered access to these athletes and have done so to keep football coaches happy. There are a TON of totally unqualified coaches at the Power Five level and the NCAA has created this problem.
In the private sector the barriers to entry are even lower. You do not have to be certified nor do you need to have a degree in the field to become a “sports performance coach.” There is no licensing to be had at the state level, and if you have enough money to start a business or you’re great at selling you’re good to go, no questions asked. This means that as a consumer, you need to become educated in who you’re giving your money to and entrusting your child’s athletic development to. There are TONS of unqualified coaches in this space, and as much as I hate government intervention into anything, it may be time to take a look at creating licensure for both strength and conditioning as well as personal training. As consumers, you all deserve better than to be swindled or sold snake oil by someone who shouldn’t even be in this field.
What Actually Happened At Oregon?
So we’ve established that Oregon had an under qualified (totally unqualified in my opinion) strength and conditioning coach who was charged with creating a better culture in the weightroom which would hopefully carry over to the field of play. I’ve heard a few different accounts of what happened from endless burpees (60 minutes worth from what I’ve heard), to forcing high volume push ups in unison for the entire team and starting over when someone wasn’t on task to a few others. Whatever the case was (I wasn’t there so I’m not going to speculate here) you cannot tell me that these training sessions were designed to increase their strength or their conditioning. The adaptations that come from these types of workouts just aren’t conducive to either of those adaptations. This was a beat down session designed to “put kids in their place” and “show them who’s boss.” I’ve worked with coaches who used this kind of work for their athletes, and I’ve worked with some who actually have the goal of making the kids throw up. I may not be the smartest guy in the room but I’m pretty sure that throwing up isn’t a desired trait in a football player, but you guys can tell me if I’m wrong.
Throughout the week there was no stop in the volume. Now it is common to put athletes through a work capacity/hypertrophy/high volume block early in their training to try lay a good foundation, get practice with the movements and push the strength ceiling higher but from the accounts I’ve read, these sessions did none of that. As the week went on a few athletes were more sore than they should have been (like a 8-9 on a pain scale), had very dark urine and some even started peeing blood. This obviously set off some alarms with the sports medicine staff and these kids (I believe there were 7) were transported to the hospital where they were diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis.
Rhabdomyolysis, or rhabdo for short, is a condition where not enough oxygen can get to the protein structures of the muscle cells and they start to die off. When these protein structures die off, they enter into the bloodstream and can clog the kidneys. This causes damage to the kidneys and can be life threatening. Giving a client or athlete rhabdo is a BIG DEAL and not something that should happen in a training session. Ending up with rhabdo means one of two things:
1. Their volume is WAY TOO high for what they’re capable of. They do not have the red blood cell count to be able to deliver enough oxygen to the working muscles. This is an adaptation that happens over time with a good enough progressive overload of volume.
2. They may have sickle cell anemia, which predisposes them to potentially end up with rhabdo. A lot of times this can be out of a coach’s hands and not their fault. However, communication between the sports medicine staff and the strength and conditioning staff can ensure this doesn’t happen.
These athletes spent a few days being monitored in the hospital before being cleared to return to training. Following this incident, the Director of Sports Performance (Oderinde) now had to run all of his training through the sports science department for approval before he was allowed to coach the sessions and that was after he came back from being suspended. Call me crazy but I’m unaware of any industry where you can almost kill a few people and still keep your position, but here we are in strength and conditioning.
While all of this was going on I was actually on staff with Jim Radcliffe with the USA Hockey Women’s Olympic Team. Jimmy had been the Director of Strength and Conditioning at the University of Oregon since the mid 80’s, until Taggart came in and pushed him aside to insert Oderinde. I remember having a few conversations with him about what was happening at Oregon, and although he’d never say it (and I don’t want to put words in the man’s mouth), I’d venture he was pretty pissed off about the whole situation. He had spent decades doing things the right way, and here comes a man with no education/certification taking over and almost killing kids in the process. While I was working NFL Combine prep early in my career I had many kids come through who had played at Oregon and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them moved damn near flawlessly and there were almost zero overuse injuries to speak of, that’s a testament to the great coach that Radcliffe is. To be pushed aside for a Recreation Management degree holder with a 2 day certification has got to be frustrating, but he took it all in stride and talked about the good he was still doing with their track and field, and baseball teams. Jimmy losing his role with that football program should be seen as a crime against humanity, but football coaches have entirely too much pull when it comes to who holds these positions.
What Will This Lawsuit Mean for NCAA Athletics?
Well, it could become the end of non certified coaches working at the NCAA level which would be a great thing. It could also FLOOD the private sector with unqualified strength and conditioning “professionals” who will try to use their work at the NCAA level to sell you on their programs. It will also open the door for future lawsuits concerning orthopedic issues former NCAA athletes carry around to this day from their playing years. There’s a lot of shady shit that happens at the NCAA level and these kids are absolutely exploited in a lot of ways. Here’s an example of things that happen all the time:
An athlete gets a meniscus tear playing football in week 7 of the season. This is an incredibly painful injury and although you can’t really make it any worse playing through it, it’s really hard to function at 100% trying to play through the pain. The athlete is presented with three options to work through this injury:
1. Rehab work to try to work around it. This is almost never an option as the athlete won’t be able to play through this kind of pain and when rehab is considered it almost always just delays the decision to do surgery.
2. A meniscus repair. If the tear is in a space that gets good blood flow the option to repair this injury is on the table. It’s a long recovery process and the athlete will miss the rest of the season.
3. A meniscectomy. This is where the surgeon goes in and basically rips out the damaged tissue. Athlete can typically play the following week but will lose the cushion between their femur and tibia.
This is the best possible scenario for an athlete. He/she’s presented with the options and can make the best possible decision for themselves both in the short term and in the long term. But there’s a problem, the options aren’t typically laid out in this fashion. They’re usually not told that they’ll eventually need a knee replacement due to getting a meniscectomy, and they’re only given the options of “do you want to lose your season or play next week?”
I’ve also seen kids bullied into getting their meniscus taken out by coaches who just wanted to make sure they were in the line up the following week. Legit zero regard for the long term consequences of this decision. They’ll tell the kids things like “you’ll be out for a while, there’s good chance someone takes your spot in the line up.” Later in life these kids will either be addicted to opiates (I’ve witnessed it myself), or they’ll need a total knee replacement in the mid 30’s (I’ve also witnessed this). By the time these things happen they’re long gone from NCAA athletics and the universities are off the hook for the pain and suffering of the athletes.
The above scenario plays out almost every week in NCAA training rooms across the country. While this scenario has nothing to do with strength and conditioning coaches, it helps paint the picture of what goes on with these athletes and the long term issues these kids are left with after their dreams are over and they’re regular members of society. If this lawsuit is successful, you’ll more than likely see some of these kids coming out of the woodwork looking for their money too and I don’t blame them.
There’s also the chance that some of these overuse issues that yield long term issues for some of these athletes are directly caused by the strength and conditioning training sessions they go through at these schools. You can wear out your joints when you’re out of position in the gym, you can cause imbalances that lead to other issues (spine/disc issues), and you can even end up with things like thoracic outlet syndrome through improper neck care in training over time. These things are all typically observed well after the athlete leaves the care of the university staff, but the seeds were planted and this process was started while they were training at the university.
There’s a good chance if this lawsuit is successful that it’ll open the floodgates for this kind of litigation in the future, and GOOD! The NCAA has been allowing the inmates to run the asylum for entirely too long. The players deserve FAR better, and the physical preparation industry may finally be able to be where it’s supposed to be. Gone will be the days of strength and conditioning “HYPE” guys jumping up and down on the sidelines, and instead we’ll have coaches who understand what they’re doing, who will be putting these athletes in the best possible position to succeed on the field, and later in life. One can dream I suppose.
