There’s No Place in Sports For Sadistic Coaches
By Ken Reed
Another college football player has died. And it was another preventable death.
Following an Associated Press investigation, we now know that Garden City Community College (KS) football player Braedon Bradforth died from exertional heatstroke last August after running 36 50-yard sprints in afternoon heat and humidity, passing out, and not getting the proper treatment promptly.
Following the practice in question, Bradforth was struggling as he tried to leave the field. Assistant coach Caleb Young told him, “Hey, you’re good. Let’s go.” Teammates shortly thereafter found Bradforth passed out outside his dorm, “making a stressful moan.”
Instead of calling paramedics, Young decided to call the team’s head coach, Jeff Sims, for instructions on how to proceed with Bradforth. Sims, instead of calling paramedics, called athletic trainer T.J. Horton. Horton then arrived on the scene and instead of calling paramedics immediately spent time trying to revive Bradforth. As Bradforth’s condition worsened, Horton finally made a call to paramedics.
During this time period, Bradforth’s teammates could clearly see Bradforth had overheated and were pouring water on him in an attempt to cool him off. By the time Horton finally called paramedics, 25 minutes had passed since Bradforth was first found passed out by some of his teammates. Bradforth was declared dead that evening.
E. Randy Eichner, a former team physician and professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Oklahoma has researched the deaths of football players for 30 years. He believes Bradforth’s death is one of the most egregious he has reviewed during his career.
“They did a lot wrong,” said Eichner. He believes that had Bradforth been put in a tub of ice water when he got off the field, he would’ve walked home in good health and played the next day.
By all indications, the Garden City Community College football coaches were both sadistic and stupid on this day. First, by running an over-the-top practice in the August afternoon heat and humidity of Kansas. (It sounds like a stereotypical early season football practice when coaches try to make “real men” out of the young athletes under their charge.) Second, by not immediately icing Bradforth down, and then wasting 25 precious minutes before calling paramedics.
“The whole way that they handled this is wrong and we need to change this,” said Joanne Atkins-Ingram, Bradforth’s mom.
That’s true but the change needs to come not just at Garden City Community College but across the entire football culture in this country.
Braedon Bradforth is dead and he shouldn’t be. The same goes for University of Maryland football player Jordan McNair and Minnesota Vikings football player Korey Stringer before him. McNair and Stringer died in similar circumstances to Bradforth.
Let’s hope football coaches around the country — and the administrators that supervise them — learn from Bradforth’s death and change their coaching styles and injury protocols.
But given our sad history with these senseless tragedies, I’m not holding my breath.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #30 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The State of College Athletics with Dr. David Ridpath: Problems and Potential Solutions – Ridpath is a sports administration professor at Ohio University and a long-time member of The Drake Group, a college sports reform think tank.
Listen on Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor and others.
Follow on Facebook: @SportsForumPodcast
More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; PocketCasts; & Anchor
Episode #29 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The Honorable Tom McMillen Visits League of Fans’ Sports Forum – McMillen is a former All-American basketball player, Olympian, Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Congressman. We discuss the state of college athletics today.
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world. We discuss problems in youth sports today.
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
Books