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In ethics bowl, Coach O'Leary again out of bounds?
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In 2002, George O'Leary was hired as the Minnesota Vikings' defensive line coach. He had recently finished a five-day stint as the head football coach at Notre Dame when it was discovered in December 2001 that he had embellished his résumé.
He had told Notre Dame that he played three years of football at the University of New Hampshire and had earned a master's degree in education at New York University. He had neither played football at New Hampshire nor earned a master's at NYU.
But that was not a problem for professional football. O'Leary had been a successful head coach at Georgia Tech, and there is no statistic in football for "first downs by integrity."
After two years with the Vikings, O'Leary was hired by the University of Central Florida, where he enjoyed some success and in 2005 was named national coach of the year. (He won the same title in 2000 while at Georgia Tech.)
His Waterloo occurred at a March 18 practice this year. Ereck Plancher, 19, a player who had been identified with sickle-cell trait when he enrolled, passed out and died an hour later.
Those with the trait do not have to abstain from rigorous exercise, but it does mean they should be vigilant for signs of overexertion.
The Orlando Sentinel interviewed four players who all said that the workout was extremely intense and that Plancher was gasping for air. They said that O'Leary verbally abused Plancher, cursing him for being unable to perform.
To protect the players, the newspaper did not identify them because it said they feared losing their scholarships.
The Sentinel sought a response from O'Leary, but he refused to comment until July 27, when he issued "my side" of the story. It did not respond to the newspaper's report of Plancher's inability to cope with the intensity of the fatal workout, or the allegation that O'Leary had cursed at him.
He said he believed that "many of the Sentinel's stories have been biased and sensationalized, based entirely on anonymous sources."
Which is another way of saying he wants to know the names of the players who told the newspaper what happened at the fateful workout.
Sentinel sports editor Lynn Hoppes told me that will not happen.
Recently attorneys representing Plancher's family notified the University of Central Florida they intend to file a wrongful death suit.
Lou Gelfand • lgelfand@startribune.com
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