Did the University of Central Florida practice a football player to death?

http://wizbangsports.com/2008/04/did_the_university_of_central.p

Players and coaches are telling entirely different stories as to how Ereck Plancher died last month. From the Orlando Sentinel-

Ereck Plancher, a 19-year-old receiver from Naples, was taken to a hospital March 18 and was pronounced dead about an hour after the workout, known as a "mat drill."

A preliminary autopsy was inconclusive. Further tests are under way to determine the cause of Plancher's death.

The UCF players, who asked for anonymity because they fear retribution from football coaches, said Plancher's final practice was more intense than the basic-conditioning workout described by UCF officials.

Students on scholarship have a great deal to lose by speaking up. Whereas government officials want annonymity for a myriad of reasons when they leak which is often done for their egos, I'm more inclined to believe these students.

In an interview with the Sentinel, UCF coach George O'Leary and his football staff disputed the four players' account of Plancher's final practice.

"I did not see him struggle on the field," O'Leary said of the morning Plancher died. "From my professional opinion, what should have been done for his care was being done."

O'Leary's professional opinion included puffing up his resume which when discovered caused him to resign as head coach of Notre Dame. This coach has lied when its suited his purposes in the past. Is he lying now?

The next part of the article is interesting.

The players said they decided to talk to Sentinel reporters because they were upset about the school's portrayal of a "10-minute, 26-second" workout that included a "weights component" described by UCF Athletic Director Keith Tribble in a news conference the afternoon of Plancher's death. UCF Executive Associate Athletic Director David Chambers a week later clarified Tribble's statement, saying the workout lasted about 20 minutes. UCF spokesman Grant Heston said Thursday that officials were relaying what they thought was accurate information.

"We were acting on the best information we had available in the hours immediately after Ereck's death," Heston said. "Subsequently, we learned that the workout was lengthier than we originally believed."

The school is backtracking already. UCF coaches had to know what drills were conducted. How or why misleading information was given out, I think we all can take a guess at that.

I'm putting the rest of the Sentinel article beneath the fold. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. George O'Leary may soon be out of work again. UCF gave this disgraced coach a second chance. If O"Leary is found to be lying, he should be fired. Football isn't worth dying for.