A nearly two-month investigation into what caused a baker’s dozen of Iowa football players to become seriously ill during an offseason workout has been completed, and the findings will be released Wednesday morning, the Iowa City Press-Citizen is reporting.
The paper published a brief synopsis of the report that will be presented to the school’s Board of Regents today, and some of the details, as you would expect, are illuminating.
Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the school’s internal probe confirmed reports that some parents of the 13 players who were diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis were upset that head coach Kirk Ferentz failed to immediately cut short a recruiting trip and return to Iowa City to deal with the situation personally. Ferentz was heavily criticized nationally for what appeared to be a lack of concern for his players, an opinion that was shared by parents angry enough to call for the suspension of coaches.>> Parents criticized the football program for a lack of communication, citing learning about the hospitalizations from the media and rare contact with coaches. (NOTE: Head coach Kirk Ferentz was out of town on a recruiting trip during the outbreak.) They interpreted the fact that the head coach did not return immediately to campus as a lack of concern on his part for the affected players.
>> Some parents expressed anger and distrust as a result of this event and suggested that some of the coaches should have been suspended until the investigation was complete.
Needless to say, the report recommends that the football program “reaffirm its decision to abandon the intense, high-volume squat lifting workout” that caused the rhabdo back in January. It should be noted, however, that the same workout that forced the hospitalization of the 13 players had been utilized successfully on two prior occasions -- June 2004, December 2007 -- “and [was] not known to cause rhabdomyolysis. Therefore, the football coaches, strength coaches or athletic trainers did not have reason to suspect that a similar workout in 2011 would cause rhabdomyolysis in 13 players.” It will be noted in the report that the circumstances between the first two workouts and the one that caused the medical condition -- i.e. a longer layoff from previous strenuous activity -- were different.
The report also confirms previous media reports that the players who fell ill did not ingest anything, legal or otherwise, that caused their condition.
Iowa, incidentally, will begin spring practice today. All 13 players affected by rhabdo during the January workouts are expected to participate.