Posted on 01/02/2010 8:16:10 PM PST by the808bass
Texas Tech has released a signed, sworn affidavit from an athletic trainer who says former coach Mike Leach instructed him to "lock" receiver Adam James in a dark place and that he disagreed with Leach's treatment of James after the player was diagnosed with a concussion.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.espn.go.com ...
I have noted that no Leach supporters have dealt with the substance of the information contained in the affidavits which directly refutes the obfuscating blather that has come from them for days.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2418935/posts
I wonder what it took to get the doc and trainer to sighn this.
I'm not sure that there's much difference in the actual facts conveyed in these affidavits. The interpretation is obviously quite different than the spin put on the earlier statements.
Of course, when a statement backs Leach, it is God-breathed truth. When it calls his actions into question, it is lies and the protestations of someone desperate to keep their own job.
Solitary confinement doesn’t seem like the standard way of dealing with a concussion victim to me, though I’m no doctor. (There seems to be some dispute about whether there were trainers or anyone else in the closet/shed/barn/cell/prayer chapel with James.) But more than that, if you’re Leach, you’ve got to cover your own butt better than this, especially if you already think James is a devious little sleazebag and his dad is an interfering, arrogant jackass.
“Craig James took bribes while playing for SMU leading to the SMU death penalty.”
I don’t imagine the people who gave those bribes to James had anything to do with SMU’s death penalty.
BTW-who was it at SMU that gave him the bribe?
I think Craig James has always been a smarta$$.
Perhaps you could point us to the evidence of these bribes. That might be the beginning of the punishment for James.
Me neither. I don't have a dog in this fight, but I think avoiding bright lights IS an accepted treatment for concussions, and maybe that's all the coach was doing. The kid may have had to be locked up because sometimes players with concussions do strange impulsive things.
Substance like that Leach was fired a day or two before he was due a large chunk of money on his contract, or that he was fired after a one day “investigation” that I am sure was extremely thorough? It is pretty obvious to me why he was fired and I do not think it is because of how he treated James. BTW, both places James was kept in for an hour or two are nicer (bigger, better amenities) than many of the places military guys and gals his age live in for a year at a time. The military folks get concussions and are usually kept in their living quarters which are much smaller with fewer amenities all of the time and they do not have medical pros checking on them every 15 minutes. The spaces James was in are nicer than many of the places I have lived in as a military contractor. I guess I just do not get it, staying for an hour or two in a nice, large, well ventilated space with water available while being monitored by medical personnel just does not seem overly cruel to me. Was the kid physically hurt in some way that is not being reported or was it only his feelings that were hurt? Does the offense of hurting a player’s feelings rise to the level of firing Coach Leach during bowl week? I don’t think it does. Perhaps it is simply because I am not as sissified as some folks are but I fail to see anything to feel sorry for James about in this whole mess, he just comes off as such a spoiled jerk now.
Tech will lose a lot more than $800k from this deal. From the initial reports of his contract, he might well be owed that amount even though he was fired before the bonus was technically due. They didn't fire him over $800k. They fired him because he appears to be absolutely unable to admit fault in almost anything, which led him to gross insubordination and an inability to apologize.
Your rambling about the conditions of a life in the military are irrelevant. And I have never requested that anyone feel sorry for Adam James.
Whatever
“Solitary confinement doesn’t seem like the standard way of dealing with a concussion victim to me, though I’m no doctor.”
“Me neither. I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I think avoiding bright lights IS an accepted treatment for concussions, and maybe that’s all the coach was doing. The kid may have had to be locked up because sometimes players with concussions do strange impulsive things.”
Are you aware that “locking someone in a room” is confining a person and has severe punishment under Texas law? Thats probably why the lawyer Leach has been denying doing this although he has since been contradicted by the trainer.
BTW, “hazing” is also a criminal offense. Leach is frantically trying to cover all his bases.
I agree with 808Bass. I lived in quonset huts with a squad of Marines for extended periods of time (and “pup tents” in the field). But that has nothing to do with this situation.
Leach refused to obey his superiors. That’s why he was fired ultimately. And rightly so. Gross insubordination.
If I had done this in the Corps, I would have been in the Brig. Fast.
I understood that he was being fired over the alleged mistreatment of a player, which I think is a matter of perspective. I was just bringing up the basis of my perspective. I still don’t think the player was mistreated. I also think that unless you know exactly what the documents he was asked to sign stated than it is premature to fault him for refusing to sign them. Coach Leach does have a JD degree and understands better than most people what documents actually say. In the end, it really doesn’t matter what I or anybody else thinks about the fairness of his firing. Coach Leach is gone, he is not coming back and hopefully the actions of Hance and company will not end up costing myself and the other taxpayers of Texas millions of dollars in legal settlements.
This mess is going to cost this university a great deal of money and prestige before the the last lawyer talks.
The father then rants on ESPN and claims medical mistreatment, a red herring if there ever was one. The ESP staffers try to get the coach suspended, successfully, and then the now embarrassed admin adds to the mistakes by firing the guy just a day or two short of a $800,000 dollar payout....(follow the money)
Meanwhile, the kid thinks his daddy helped his career when in fact he destroyed it, and the coach knows damn well that in the end he gets his money.
ESPN has far exceeded it's news roll once again, and I would hope that in the end they pay for it, but we shall see. I suppose the university could sue them to recoup what they are about to lose.
I pretty much agree with everythign you wrote but I think this will end up fitting exactly what Rush Limbaugh defines as the drive by media. They drive by, cause panic and confusion, kill reputations and careers and then drive away unnoticed in the excitement and are never help accountable for their actions. The only thing that amazes me is how many times the media can do this and still have any credibility left with people who should know better.
It’s truly amazing they can cause so much havoc and not even be accountable!
Oh yes, there were payments made to numerous SMU football players and James is one of the many players that took the money.
However, I do find it interesting that some would blame Craig James for the demise of the SMU program while it was Texas Governor Bill Clements who sat on SMU's Board of Governors and approved the payments to Craig James and others.
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