Teammates of ASU hockey player who collapsed during workout call for coaches to be put on leave

Members of Arizona State University's hockey team are calling for the university to put their coaches on administrative leave before the start of the season Friday. This comes after one of their teammates collapsed from life-threatening heatstroke during their first coach-led practice in August.

Matthew Mayich is still hospitalized more than a month after his collapse. His family’s attorney has said the 21-year-old is unlikely to recover.

Now, Tim Casey, an attorney representing seven other players on the team, has sent a letter to ASU President Michael Crow asking for an independent investigation into the circumstances of the Aug. 20 practice.

Casey said he has confirmed the identities of the seven players and has signed attestations from each of them. But the players are anonymous in their letter.

“We are submitting this report anonymously because we fear retaliation from the coaching staff,” they wrote. “That fear is not directed at one person. The head coach and his assistant coaches were all on the field on Aug. 20, all remain in their positions, and together they decide our playing time, scholarship levels, and roster status.”

On Sept. 21, ASU senior vice president for educational outreach and student services James Rund released an initial report about the incident. The report does not place blame on any party involved, but recommends ASU form an advisory panel to review policies for outdoor athletic activities and the use of outside consultants.

In their letter, the seven anonymous athletes contradicted some of the points in Rund’s report.

For example, they said Mayich never got a water break during the practice, which lasted more than an hour.

“There was one water break, which we estimate was offered 35 to 45 minutes into the session, not 20 as the Rund report found. It lasted seconds and only the first finishers of a drill reached the water, about eight of us. Everyone else was pushed directly into the next task,” they wrote.

The National Weather Service had issued an extreme heat warning on Aug. 20. The players wrote that coaches failed to follow several of ASU’s policies for heat safety.

They said multiple team members in addition to Mayich were showing obvious signs of heat illness.

“The session continued after some of us showed signs of distress, including dropping to a knee, vomiting and, in Matthew’s case, visible disorientation well before the final task,” they wrote.

Sun Devil Athletics’ heat illness policy requires a tub half-filled with cold water to be available for immediate immersion in cases of heat illness and says three or four coolers of ice should be available next to the tub to quickly use in case of emergency. It recommends full-body immersion in cold water as the first response to heat illness.

The players wrote, “there was no immersion tub, no ice chest, no ice for cooling, no fan, and no stretcher. We carried him to the parking slab just south of the bleachers. The cold tub in Mullett Arena was not used.”

The Aug. 20 workout was led by Army special forces veteran Timothy Ziesel, whom ASU hockey coaches had brought in as an outside consultant to guide teambuilding exercises.

In their letter, the athletes asked whether Ziesel was properly vetted in accordance with ASU policies.

“Consultants must carry and be able to prove first-aid, CPR, and AED certification. The Rund report does not address this, and the record contains no evidence that Ziesel held these certifications,” the athletes wrote.

ASU police are conducting their own investigation into the incident.

The seven anonymous players asked ASU to refer the investigation to an agency outside the university. And they asked that interim coaching staff be named until that is done.

“An interim staff would allow the investigation to be completed, and the players to be heard, without asking players to put their scholarships, roster positions, and playing time at risk in order to be heard. It is not fair to require that,” they wrote.

During a National Collegiate Hockey Conference media event Sept. 23, ASU hockey head coach Greg Powers declined to comment on the Rund report or the ongoing ASU police investigation but said he is still the right person to lead the team.

“I believe that I am the right guy, and 20 years of a body of work and building a program, almost 20 years now, I still believe that,” Powers said. “Everything that has been great about coming here to play hockey still is.”