The Best American Sports Writing 2019

by Charles P. Pierce

  Murphy called the one-hour time gap between McNair showing distress at about 5 p.m. and the 911 call being made “an utter disregard of the health of this player, and we are extraordinarily concerned that the coaches did not react appropriately to his injury.”

  McNair died at Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore on June 13.

  Maryland officials said in their statement: “At no point before or during the external review has a student-athlete, athletic trainer, or coach reported a seizure occurring at 5 p.m.”

  Several current football players and people close to the program say that because of the program’s culture, players were all but forced to try to complete whatever workout came their way.

  “It shows a cultural problem that Jordan knew that if he stopped, they would challenge his manhood, he would be targeted,” one of the current players said. “He had to go until he couldn’t.”

  Several current players and people close to the program described a sustained pattern of verbal abuse and intimidation of players. A former staff member said “verbal personal attacks on kids” occurred so often that everyone became numb to them.

  “We always talked about family, but whose family talks to you like that, calls you a p—y b—?” a third former staffer said. “There are so many instances.”

  Former Maryland defensive lineman Malik Jones, who transferred after last season from Maryland to Toledo, said he had an altercation with Durkin after Durkin took exception to Jones’s smiling during a team meeting. Durkin and Jones went to another room and, according to Jones, Durkin accused him of “bad-mouthing the program” and encouraged him to leave.

  “He basically got in my face, was pointing his finger in my face and calling me explicit names and things of that nature,” said Jones, who appeared in six games last season for Maryland. “I’m not going to let a guy bully me . . . He called me a b— and stuff like that. I’m not going to tolerate that.”

  A former staff member recalled a time when one player was in a team meeting with food on a plate because he was rushing from a meal to get to the meeting, and Court smacked the plate of food out of the player’s hands, yelling at him.

  “It was embarrassing,” the second former staffer said. “It was the ultimate of embarrassment.”

  He described Court as “a very aggressive, in-your-face, matter-of-fact” coach who “would use any language he deemed appropriate to get a response or move your needle.”

  “He’s just a ball of testosterone all the time,” one current player said. “He’s really in your face. He’ll call you [expletives], he’ll challenge you in the weight room. He’ll put more weight on the bar than you can do, ever done in your life, and expect you to do it multiple times. He’ll single people out he doesn’t like, which is a common practice here. Guys are run off. They’ll have them do specific finishes at the end and do harder workouts or more workouts just to make their lives miserable here. He’s kind of Durkin’s tool to accomplish that. He’s the guy people hate, and that way Durkin doesn’t have to take the blow for it. Guys can’t stand Coach Court.”

  Jones said he witnessed several “rants and outbursts” from Court.

  “They did go by the philosophy of balls to the wall,” Jones said. “Push to the extreme? That was an everyday thing. I’ve seen him get physical with guys sometimes, throw objects at guys sometimes, small weights, anything he had in his hand at the time. I don’t think he was trying to intentionally hit them, but I know for a fact he purposely threw them in their direction.”

  Another former player alleged the staff made an injured player do a tug-of-war competition against the whole defensive back unit.

  “They made him do it with one hand,” he said. “Coach Court called him a p— after he didn’t win. One [player] was doing a tug-of-war . . . and he passed out . . . I saw his body slowly giving away, and the strength coach was like, ‘Keep pulling, keep pulling!’ . . . He collapsed on the ground. He looked at him like, ‘You quit on the team.’ It was really barbaric.”

  J. T. Ventura, a former safety who played from 2013 to 2017 under former Maryland coach Randy Edsall and Durkin, said the workouts were particularly intense the first season under Durkin. Durkin came to Maryland from Michigan, where he was the defensive coordinator and linebackers coach. He worked under Jim Harbaugh at Michigan and Stanford, and for Ohio State coach Urban Meyer at Bowling Green and Florida.

  Maryland was the first to hire Durkin as a head coach, and he immediately wanted to put his stamp on the program. Durkin’s staff has gone through significant change, as only four original assistants from 2016 remain, and seven have since departed College Park. More than 20 players have left the team in the past two and a half years.

  “They were trying to weed out players,” Ventura said. “They actually called some players ‘thieves’ for being on scholarship and not being very good. During some of the workouts, there were kids who were really struggling, and Coach Court, he’d keep on yelling. He would use profanity a lot, try to push kids when they reached their limit during workouts.

  “If a kid would stop or go on the ground, him and the medical staff would try to drag players up and get them to run after they’d already reached their limit. They definitely bullied us to make sure we kept on going.”

  Team sources said the verbal barrages from Court have continued this month in preseason camp.

  Durkin made Court one of his first staff hires in December 2015, appointing him to lead Maryland’s strength and conditioning program. The two first worked together at Bowling Green in the mid-2000s. The Washington Post reported that Court was the first call Durkin made after landing the Maryland job.

  Players and other sources close to the team said Durkin and Court were aligned in all elements surrounding workouts and strength training.

  “They’re joined at the hip,” one source said. “They’re the same. They use the same language and the same classification.”

  Added a current player: “They usually target and pick a couple people they think are soft and go after them . . . [Durkin and Court] feed off of each other. I would say Court is as much responsible for the culture as Durkin.”

  A former staff member said Court is Durkin’s “confidant.”

  The culture criticism centers on Durkin and Court but also draws in Wes Robinson, the Terrapins’ head athletic trainer. Though Durkin and Court came in together after the 2015 season, Robinson has served in his position since 2006, working with previous Maryland coaches Ralph Friedgen and Edsall. One former staff member who worked with Robinson at Maryland described him as “meek and mild-mannered.”

  “He was always very professional,” a fourth former staffer told ESPN.

  Those who have known Robinson for many years agreed, but multiple former staffers said he changed his tenor to match Durkin’s and the environment that Durkin sought to create around the program.

  “It did seem like he was trying to become someone he really wasn’t,” the third former staff member said. “I’m sure he probably felt a certain amount of pressure from D.J. I think most trainers probably do, but I think Wes may have morphed into a personality that he’s really not. I thought he was excellent at his job.”

  Multiple sources said that after McNair finished his 10th sprint while two other players held him up, Robinson yelled, “Drag his ass across the field!”

  Said the first former staffer of Robinson’s apparent change in approach: “Players aren’t the only ones who can be bullied.”

  Current and former players and other sources described a program known as the Champions Club that was created by Durkin to reward players who met expectations for workouts, academics, training table, and other areas. Players who could not complete workouts risked being removed from the Champions Club for several weeks or months. A former staff member said the club became a significant point of pride for the players.

  “As soon as you sit out a run, you feel a little dizzy or light-headed, you’re not in Champions Club anymore,�
�� a former player said.

  Current and former players also described several incidents where staff members targeted players because of weight issues. Sources said a former offensive lineman whom the staff deemed overweight was forced to watch workouts while eating candy bars as a form of humiliation. Another former Terrapins player said his inability to gain weight resulted in members of the strength and conditioning staff sitting with him at meals to make sure he ate.

  “They were trying to make me gain weight really, really fast,” said the player, who left the program. “That involved me overeating a lot, sometimes eating until I threw up. They always had me come back for extra meals. Once, I was sitting down eating with a coach, and he basically made me sit there until I threw up. He said to eat until I threw up. I was doing what they asked me to do, trying to gain the weight, but at the time, I just couldn’t gain the weight, and I guess they weren’t understanding that.”

  McNair’s death has prompted players and people close to the program to speak up.

  “I would’ve never thought a kid would pay the ultimate price,” the third former staff member said. “I don’t know, maybe we were all blind to what was being developed there. I don’t know. I just hope it doesn’t happen again.”

  One current player told ESPN that university leadership, including athletic director Damon Evans and president Wallace Loh, had “a lack of action” in their response to McNair’s death.

  “We had a kid die . . . It took all summer for us to even get a third-party investigation to meet with, and the timing [of those interviews] is absolutely horrendous,” the player said. “This is a huge problem at Maryland.”

  ESPN requested to interview Loh, Robinson, and Evans, but university officials declined to make them available. According to a Maryland official, Evans addressed the team on multiple occasions, including a private moment of reflection on June 15 held in McNair’s honor that the athletic department organized for all student-athletes and staff. Evans was also in attendance at a June 1 meeting in which the team received a medical update on McNair, a June 13 team meeting, and a June 21 meeting for parents. Loh went to the hospital and funeral and “interacted with players at both,” according to officials.

  The two current players who spoke with ESPN and other sources close to the program said they are concerned about how Walters’s investigation is being managed.

  Players had to return early from their time off to meet with investigators on August 1, two days before the first preseason workout. A sign-up sheet was posted on the office door of Jason Baisden, the team’s assistant athletic director for football operations and equipment. Meetings took place in the offensive staff’s meeting room in the Gossett Football Team House.

  “They tried to interview players at the most inconvenient time, in Gossett, basically right in front of Durkin’s office,” one of the current players said.

  “Basically anybody can walk by, any coach or whoever really wants to can walk by and see who signed up and see who’s talking to the investigation,” the other current player said. “They’re singling us out even more when it’s supposed to be an anonymous investigation.”

  The player said that each meeting was scheduled for only 15 minutes. Players were asked what they wanted to share about the May 29 workout and were advised to see counselors.

  “It was a joke,” the same player said.

  University officials confirmed there was a sign-up sheet posted but disputed the allegation that it wasn’t an anonymous process. According to a university spokesperson, players were also allowed to sign up by text message, they were verbally reminded by the coaches to participate, and had the “opportunity to walk in any time anonymously.”

  “There were multiple ways student-athletes could volunteer participation in the external review, including confidentially meeting with consultants to offer information without being identified,” said university spokesperson Katie Lawson. “They will still have the opportunity to do so.”

  A source said that investigators are expected to return to campus next week to interview more football players.

  Virginia Ottley Craighill

  The Lost Cause

  from Sport Literate

  Disaster Artist

  * * *

  It’s raining and cold. The massive crowd is going nowhere fast. Mashed together like cattle in a stockyard, we are about 30 yards from the entrance. From here we can see only two security screens, like the ones at the airport. Some guys farther behind us get ugly, start pushing, and scream at the gatekeepers, “What’s the fucking holdup?! You guys are idiots! We paid a lot of money to stand here in the fucking rain. Get us inside now, ASSHOLES!” People close to the entrance turn and collectively roll their eyes, although we’re probably all thinking the same thing. It’s 7:15 and kick-off is in an hour.

  We’re waiting outside the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia with tickets to the 2018 College Football National Championship Game between the University of Alabama and the University of Georgia. The Tide versus the Dawgs, in the vernacular. The guy behind us is right about one thing: everyone in line likely paid a lot of money to be here. My husband went to Georgia, and he loves football, so he paid some obscene amount of money, an amount I never want to know, to take us, our son and daughter and me, to this game.

  The problem, I suspect, is Donald Trump. The president of the United States flew to the game earlier on Air Force One and is now ensconced in a cozy luxury box with former Georgia Governor and current U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue. My suspicion is later confirmed by one of the ticket takers, who says Trump’s arrival set security back hours and caused traffic gridlock and unconscionable waits at the entrances. Trump knows he has a fan base in Alabama and Georgia.

  We’re now 30 minutes from the coin toss and have only moved two feet. The man behind me presses his crotch into my backside. I am tempted to #MeToo him after watching the Golden Globes, but he appears to be pushed forward by the aggressive crowd behind him and probably can’t help where his crotch ends up. I give him the benefit of the doubt. My husband keeps telling the people in line around him how badly he needs to use the bathroom, which is probably not what they want to hear. My son, who wears a Georgia sweatshirt and a red ribbon in his hair, points out a woman a few yards ahead of us in line. She has a whitish translucent pointy poncho over her head that we all agree looks disturbingly like either a condom on a penis or a KKK hood. But her hair will be fine once she gets inside. My husband holds up a broken and ineffectual umbrella.

  The National Football Championship Game would be an excellent setting for a disaster film. Instead of a vengeful sniper (Two-Minute Warning) or a suicidal Vietnam vet flying an explosive blimp over the stadium (Black Sunday), in my version the electricity in the stadium would be cut once everyone is inside and the stadium doors locked while kidnappers with night-vision goggles hired by a secret cadre of Republican senators seek out the president. This is not as far-fetched as one would think since the electricity went out at the Atlanta International Airport two weeks before Christmas.

  When I mention this to my family, my daughter, who is wearing a Georgia football hat and ear plugs, tells me to keep quiet in case the Secret Service is listening. In disaster films of the 1970s, the smart, attractive people always made it out alive, while the stupid, unappealing characters died in horrifically entertaining ways. The drunk, screaming guys behind us would definitely meet their maker in my film. Even a nice character like the one played by Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure had to die because she was fat and somewhat old. At least she drowned sacrificing herself for one of the cuter, younger characters. At fifty-seven, I most likely would not be saved in my own film, but my children would probably make it.

  Getting inside has become a matter of increasing urgency for my husband. We slowly inch closer to the security screens, jamming ourselves toward where you empty your pockets into the little bowl, raise your arms, and submit to metal detectors. Shouts of joy come fr
om those who have finally made it through to the other side. The women in front of me have clear plastic purses with the Georgia bulldogs’ insignia on them; they get through quickly. The men take longer because they have to pull everything out of their pants pockets and often forget some piece of change. That sets off the scanner, and they have to get a pat-down from the guards, who probably do not enjoy it any more than the fans do.

  My husband goes first, after telling the guard, the woman scanning the electronic tickets, and everyone around him that he’s going to piss himself. He does not get a pat-down. The woman points him in the direction of the nearest bathrooms, three floors up. He hands me his phone with the electronic tickets for the rest of us, and runs. Not having bathrooms on the ground floor seems like shortsighted planning for a building that costs $1.5 billion. After our son and daughter scan in, they take off for our seats. It’s close to kick-off. They yell back at me to go to Section 309. I stand on the gray concrete floor and wait for my husband, though we did not communicate about where to meet, and I have his cell phone, which has the seat numbers on it. After five minutes, I get anxious and head up the first flight of stairs. The stadium is cavernous, bigger than anything I’ve ever been in, bigger, probably, than the ship in The Poseidon Adventure. It has no logic. Crowds of people who just made it through the scanner run past me to their seats; it’s a blur of red and black. Someone has urinated on the second flight of stairs. I pray it’s not my husband.

  “Fuck Trump”

  * * *

  Section 309 is all the way on the other side of the stadium, about two miles away, over something called the Sky Bridge. The announcer introduces President Trump, and there are sounds of booing, hissing, and cheering. My feelings about him become more negative, if possible, because of the inconvenience he has caused the people trying to get in, and I mutter under my breath, “Fuck you, Trump.” I realize I sound like the rude people in line behind me, but their anger was misdirected at the security guards. Apparently, I am not alone in my sentiments: protesters projected “FUCK TRUMP” in giant letters onto the stadium before he arrived. At this point, people are mostly in their seats, though many are frantically buying $8 beers. We had our beer and chicken tenders from Publix earlier while sitting in our car in a vacant lot where we’d paid some guy $30 instead of $50 to park. We gave the attendant a piece of chicken, and he left to get a cup of coffee and never came back. My husband will probably spend the rest of his life trying to make up the cost of these tickets, so I hope our car is still there when we get back.