telling 12News in Phoenix last week<\/a>: \u201cThere isn\u2019t a D1 athlete on the planet that would describe this as a hard day of exercising, including the ASU hockey team.\u201d<\/p>\nCarey, a partner at the law firm Hagens Berman, blasted those comments and similar reports as \u201cfictional\u201d and part of a \u201cfalse narrative\u201d he considers an attempt by those involved in the workout to manipulate the truth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already gotten information on what happened that day, and I\u2019m very confident it was a grueling, onerous and dangerous workout,\u201d Carey said, pushing back against suggestions it was a team-bonding exercise consisting of light calisthenics.<\/p>\n
Carey, who represented former ASU quarterback Sam Keller as he joined former UCLA basketball player Ed O\u2019Bannon in a landmark legal victory over the NCAA for name, image and likeness rights, said his firm will exercise every resource at its disposal to obtain any communications, including text messages and videos, about the incident or any statements made thereafter, including any that were deleted.<\/p>\n
Athletic director Graham Rossini said in a radio interview last week it was \u201ca really, really important distinction\u201d to note the school was not investigating what happened but rather conducting a review: \u201cThis is not an investigation where someone is suggesting something went wrong. We\u2019re just reviewing the facts and understanding the scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carey said it is routine procedure during an investigation to consider putting \u201cthe coach and anyone on staff on administrative leave\u201d to separate them from witnesses of the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cA kid\u2019s life was basically ruined, the family is devastated, and people refuse to accept responsibility,\u201d Carey said.<\/p>\n
Last week, Chris Fiscus, vice president of ASU media relations, said the school\u2019s athletic department has heat illness guidelines in place, informed by the National Athletic Trainers\u2019 Association, and institutional guidelines and requirements relating to the engagement of outside entities who interact with student-athletes. Fiscus declined to answer questions about who authorized the Aug. 20 workout and whether any coaches or trainers were present.<\/p>\n
Fiscus said last week the review would be led by ASU senior vice president James Rund, who, according to his ASU biography, also serves as the executive vice chair for Sun Devil Sports and filled in as ASU\u2019s interim vice president for Sun Devil Athletics in 2023-24. Rund received his doctorate in education from Arizona State.<\/p>\n
Rod Walters, the national director of athlete safety at Andrews Athlete, who has investigated several college athlete safety cases, said an independent review from outside the school produces the most accurate result.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can name you case after case after case where an internal review said everything was fine,\u201d Walters said. \u201cThat\u2019s not always the case. But many times, that\u2019s the case. I think the parents, the institution, the stakeholders, they want to have a feeling that it\u2019s independent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walters recalled that when he investigated the death of Maryland football player Jordan McNair, he rebuffed the university board of regents\u2019 request for weekly updates \u201cas it tampers with the process.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had institutions that have said we would like to have reports as you\u2019re moving along,\u201d Walters said. \u201cI said, \u2018Well then, we need to part ways, because I\u2019m not going to do that. This is an independent investigation.\u2019 That\u2019s just how we operate.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the day Mayich collapsed, the temperature in Tempe was 86 degrees at 6:51 a.m. with 51 percent humidity and no wind, according to the Weather Underground website. Based on those conditions, the National Weather Service recommends 15 minutes of break for every hour of exercise. Tempe Fire Medical Rescue crews were dispatched to Sun Angel Stadium on ASU\u2019s campus at 8:31 a.m. for a \u201cheat-related illness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An attorney representing Matthew Mayich\u2019s family said Arizona State University is mishandling the investigation into the hockey player\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5120],"tags":[8378,71,5,4,534,84,5285,5284],"class_list":["post-653146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-louis-blues","tag-arizona-state-sun-devils","tag-blues","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-st-louis","tag-st-louis-blues","tag-stlouis","tag-stlouisblues"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117192917296505034","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}