Wheeler Coroner Report Disputed
Raising questions publicly for the first time about Rashidi Wheeler’s culpability in his own death, Northwestern officials declared Tuesday that their athletic department “behaved appropriately, indeed valiantly” the day the senior defensive back collapsed during a conditioning drill and then died.
In a lengthy and carefully worded statement released after a two-month internal investigation, university President Henry S. Bienen also challenged autopsy results in Wheeler’s case. He said medical experts interviewed by the university have said Wheeler’s use of the banned stimulant ephedrine may have also played a role in his death.
In court Tuesday, the university went even further. In responding to a wrongful death lawsuit filed Aug. 23 by Wheeler’s family, university representatives at several points stated that Wheeler “did not die of bronchial asthma.”
Wheeler’s mother, Linda Will, saying she was “appalled” and “enraged,” labeled the university’s review a whitewash.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled that Wheeler, 22, of Ontario, died Aug. 3 from exercise-induced bronchial asthma. He collapsed during a rigorous 28-sprint drill run at an on-campus field--a drill that was a mainstay of Coach Randy Walker’s demanding conditioning regimen--and was later pronounced dead at nearby Evanston (Ill.) Hospital. Players, timed by a strength coach, kept running the drill as rescue crews arrived to tend to Wheeler, even as an ambulance took him away to the hospital.
In releasing some of the findings, Bienen said that Wheeler ingested not only one, but two, dietary supplements before the conditioning drill, each containing ephedrine--which is banned by the NCAA. Such findings led experts to voice “significant issues about the precise cause of Wheeler’s death,” including “whether dietary supplements played a role.”
In denying any wrongdoing, the university also asserted in the legal papers that the “care rendered [to Wheeler] was appropriate under the circumstances.”
Will said she was shocked that the university would question a coroner’s findings.
“The fact that they want to challenge the Cook County coroner’s findings leaves me appalled at their egos, that they think they have that much power,” she said. “If they feel comfortable challenging the coroner’s findings, no one should be surprised by their failure to accept responsibility. They never have.”
Tom Demetrio, the Chicago attorney representing Wheeler’s father, George Wheeler Jr., described Bienen’s statement and the university’s legal papers as “show-biz and grandstanding, totally anticipated and predictable.” He added, “I don’t think any of us should have expected Northwestern to roll over and say, ‘Here’s the check.’ ”
Will earlier called for the ousting of Walker, Athletic Director Rick Taylor and others involved with the football program.
But Bienen said the university review “leads me to fully support” Taylor, Walker and the others. He later added, “I appreciate Coach Walker’s leadership of our football team and expect him to be coaching the Wildcats for a very long time to come.”
Bienen also defended Walker’s use of the “strenuous” drill, saying it is “not significantly different from what many peer institutions do.”
The statement disclosed little that is new--only confirmation that Northwestern had committed what he called a “secondary” NCAA rules violation because the Aug. 3 drill was videotaped and the results of the drill reported to the football coaching staff. The NCAA requires that summer workouts be voluntary and not formally overseen by the football staff.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has served as a spokesman for the Wheeler family, said, “What is rather obvious to me still is that [Northwestern] can not get around the fact that this was an obligated but medically unsupervised practice.”
Bienen said the results of a sprint drill and another weightlifting drill conducted earlier in the summer--he did not say when--were also relayed to the football staff. Northwestern has already reported these “apparent violations” to the NCAA and forfeited six football practices, he said.
“We are hopeful that the NCAA will accept these penalties,” Bienen said in the statement.
Will said, “They put a six-practice value on my son’s life? The nerve of them.”
The statement clearly was drafted with an eye toward litigation--the Aug. 23 wrongful death suit. Named as defendants are the university, Taylor, Walker, head trainer Tory Aggeler and a handful of other Northwestern staffers.
Bienen said in the statement that though the university had interviewed more than 100 people over the past two months--including coaches, players and “leading medical experts from around the nation”--Northwestern was not prepared to share “all the details of our review at this time because of the lawsuit.”
The statement also made abundantly clear a point of legal strategy Northwestern will rely on during the case. It comes from another court case involving a would-be Northwestern basketball player.
In November, 1995, a Northwestern team doctor declared freshman basketball player Nicholas Knapp--whose heart had once stopped during a high school pickup game--medically ineligible to play for the Wildcats. Knapp, a scholarship athlete, sued for the right to play; the scholarship was not revoked.
A federal judge ruled for the player but an appeals court later sided with the university. The statement said that the decision in the Knapp case “illustrates strongly our commitment to our students’ safety and well-being.”
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Investigation Highlights
These are some of the assertions made by Northwestern President Henry S. Bienen in the statement he released Tuesday after a two-month internal investigation into the circumstances of Rashidi Wheeler’s Aug. 3 death:
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* “We are confident that the staff present at the workout was qualified and appropriate.”
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* “It appears that on the day of Aug. 3 conditioning workout, some members of the football team, including Rashidi Wheeler, took over-the-counter dietary supplements that contained ma huang, a Chinese herb that contains the NCAA-banned substance ephedrine.”
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* “Northwestern has consulted with numerous nationally recognized experts in a wide variety of medical fields ... [and] these experts have raised significant issues about the precise cause of Rashidi Wheeler’s death, including whether dietary supplements containing ephedra played a role.”
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* “Our conditioning regimen, including the workout performed on Aug. 3, while strenuous, is not significantly different from what many peer institutions do. The workout, or one similar to it, has been used for many years at several schools.”
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* “I especially want to note our support for head football Coach Randy Walker. I appreciate Coach Walker’s leadership of our football team and expect him to be coaching the Wildcats for a very long time to come.”
