Lawyer Demands Independent Investigation, Coaching Staff to be Placed on Leave
by Adam Wodon/Managing Editor (@chn-adam-wodon)
A lawyer for the family of Matthew Mayich said today that Mayich has “no real chance of recovering,” and criticized the school for multiple failures in handling the situation.
Mayich, a 21-year old defenseman, collapsed during an off-ice workout at Arizona State’s football stadium on Aug. 20. He has remained at Neurological Institute in Phoenix on a life support system. Mayich spent four years playing in the OHL, then was a freshman last season at Clarkson before transferring.
Phoenix-area attorney Rob Carey said the school needs to commission an independent investigation into what happened, including putting the coaching staff on administrative leave. He said Mayich is currently “incapacitated.”
The ASU coaching staff brought in a local former military service member, Tim Ziesel, to lead the workout. The approximately one-hour-long session was supposed to be the first of three days of workouts led by Ziesel. An attorney for Ziesel previously told the Arizona Republic that the workout was not particularly harsh.
“This was not a Green Beret or SEAL workout. Far from it,” Ziesel’s lawyer, Buddy Rake, told the Arizona Republic on Aug. 27. “The head coach, assistant coaches and medical were always present.”
Carey, who said he is conducting his own investigation, said that representation is not accurate. Carey said he has spoken to multiple people with knowledge of the events, though he declined to name them.
“I’m very comfortable that I know what happened that day,” Carey said. “The storyline for ASU on this is horrible, which is why the president of the university needs to get some insight into what happened that day. Because his underlings aren’t doing him any favors. They’re setting him up for a complete loss of credibility.”
Ziesel left as the workout was ending. He said he’s not been contacted by the university.
ASU athletic director Graham Rossini told a local radio show on Aug. 28, “This is not an investigation where somebody’s suggesting something went wrong. We’re just reviewing the facts and understanding the scenario.”
Carey said a “review” is not sufficient.
“I don’t even mind them not saying anything,” Carey said, “but I mind them saying, ‘Well, this is a review not an investigation because there’s no suggestion anything was done wrong.’ Well, a kid’s life is over basically, one way or another. And you don’t think that suggests wrongdoing or some sort of mistake? These things don’t just happen, this was a very healthy kid.”
CHN reached out to ASU athletic director Graham Rossini for comment. In response, ASU’s vice president of media relations Chris Fiscus released the following statement:
“The morning outdoor workout was a team event at which coaches and training staff were present along with a third party who had previously worked with the ASU Hockey team. ASU has institutional guidelines and requirements relating to the engagement of outside entities who interact with ASU student-athletes and sport programs.
“Sun Devil Athletics also has heat-illness guidelines in place; these guidelines are informed by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association. SDA student-athletes regularly practice and train outside, under coach and trainer supervision.
“ASU is reviewing all the circumstances surrounding the workout and the related university policies, procedures and training protocols. James Rund, senior vice president, is leading the review.
“The review will take the time needed to collect and assess information in a manner that is thoughtful, respectful of the student-athlete, his family, his teammates and ASU’s privacy obligations.”
Carey said he expected more from ASU by now.
“If they were investigating it properly, if they had put the coaches on leave and hired an independent law firm to investigate so they could actually get the truth from the players and staff and assistant coaches and former players, who were all on the field and saw this, they would get a story that’s completely opposite from the Green Beret’s story, and the story that it looks like ASU spoon-fed them, where they were claiming it was really easy, mild, team-building —- that didn’t happen, that’s not what happened that day.”
The school has not commented on the status of the team. Arizona State is scheduled to open its season in just over four weeks, with a pair of games at Lindenwood on Oct. 2-3.
It’s relatively common for college teams, across all sports, to employ third-party companies to handle off-season workouts. Many of those companies are led by ex-military personnel, and consist of various team-building exercises.
Carey said Ziesel, however, does not have a regular business, and this is more something he does sporadically.
“These military style workouts were en vogue a little while ago, and then I think people realized they’re just not built for student athletes,” Carey said. “They don’t seek the same objectives and they’re not a good fit. And people have been injured in the past for these.”
The workout was conducted at 8:30 a.m. The temperature at the time was approximately 87 degrees. The workout, Carey said, included intensive workouts with no breaks, while Ziesel instructed the players “like a drill instructor.” He said Mayich was already showing signs of distress before collapsing.
“These are kids that weren’t even in the valley a week, a lot of them, and you start on a heat advisory day with kids who aren’t heat acclimatized and you go out there and grind them to a pulp with a Green Beret where there’s no rest breaks and very, very little water if any,” Carey said. “Some of the kids did not get water. There was only one water break, and it was only for the people in the very front who could do it in time to get to the second task. If you were lagging, you were stuck. That’s just completely, grossly inappropriate.”
Carey said the coaching staff should never have brought in a third party with limited experience on proper safety procedures.
“They’re the ones that hired him. They’re the ones that started this on day one. That decided this was going to be a grueling, punishing, message-sending workout,” Carey said. “They’re the ones that decided not to have appropriate heat-related safety equipment nearby, which is itself a problem — immersion tub, or a cooling blanket, some mechanism where, if you have a heat stroke issue, it can be resolved. There are standards, somewhat, for these outdoor workouts, just not for hockey, because generally they’re not working out in hot climates outdoors. But if you follow the guidance for other sports, there’s an acclimatization period and safety standard and hydration standard.
“In Arizona, I remember years and years ago — the people that were cutting off water, they got hauled into court and destroyed. And then everybody knew you could not cut off water. And then it became the opposite, everyone in Arizona knows, you make them drink water even if they don’t want it. Yet here we are, this is like a throwback to the ’80s where if you’re lagging you’re a loser and you don’t deserve water. That is just so stale and out of touch with reality and safety.
“He’s not an athletic trainer. He’s a Green Beret doing his Green Beret schtick. He wasn’t anything other than as advertised. There was a conscious decision made to bring this guy in there to punish these kids and show them they had to get tough this year.
“You need an independent investigation and you need to separate the coaches from the athletes because they’re scared to tell the truth now.”
Carey said he informed Arizona State on Monday of his involvement in the case, sending them a letter instructing them to preserve all digital communication about the issue. He plans on continuing his investigation, talking to as many people as possible, and see where it leads. From there, there will likely be a request to settle the case with the state of Arizona, and if they don’t agree or respond, a law suit would follow.
“The university has a decision to make on whether they’re going to try to reclaim some credibility here,” Carey said. “I think they’re in trouble if they keep this quiet, don’t do anything, and act like nothing happened. That’s not going to work out well for them.”
Carey is a partner at the law firm Hagens Berman and leads the firm’s Phoenix office. Carey was the attorney for former ASU quarterback Sam Keller when he joined Ed O’Bannon’s case about the NCAA over name, image and likeness rights. That 2014 decision in favor of the plaintiffs opened the door for players to collect NIL compensation. In addition to many other class action lawsuits, Carey was involved in a landmark youth-sports safety case involving a Pop Warner football player.
In 2024, nine Tufts University lacrosse players were hospitalized after an intense workout led by a former team manager who had recently been through a Navy SEAL training program. All nine eventually recovered. The university immediately commissioned an independent investigation, led by sports medicine expert Rod Walters. The school eventually admitted that the workout was inappropriate, poorly vetted, and led by an unqualified instructor. They immediately agreed to implement all recommended safety overhauls.
Walters led a similar investigation in 2018 after the death of Maryland football player Jordan McNair. He released a 74-page report that described similar failures in training staff not taking the proper precautions, including not having an immersive cold tub available, and waiting too long to call 911. The head coach was fired in the aftermath. That case ended in a $3.5 million settlement from the University of Maryland to McNair’s family.
In 2001, NFL lineman Korey Stringer died from a similar situations. His body temperature rose to 108 degrees, and medical staff on hand failed to cool his body before transporting him. That became a standard for which all athletic trainers from that point forward were meant to follow. Because of the precedents and facts established during the Stringer wrongful death trial, it became easy for future juries to rule in favor of plaintiffs in similar cases, such as the McNair one. Kelci Stringer, Kory’s widow, used the settlement money to establish the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, the nation’s leading authority on sudden death in sports.