Ex-Oregon OL adds $100M to suit against NCAA
Former Oregon OL Doug Brenner added a $100M punitive damages claim to his lawsuit against the NCAA.
Doug Brenner, a former Oregon offensive lineman, is suing the NCAA for $100 million in punitive damages in a trial that begins Tuesday in Eugene and also names the University of Oregon and its former head football coach, Willie Taggart, as defendants.
Brenner alleges in the lawsuit he sustained lifelong injuries during a series of controversial workouts in 2017.
According to the lawsuit, Taggart told players when he was hired that he and the new coaches were going to focus on discipline in strength and conditioning and that they were "going to find the snakes in the grass and cut their heads off."
The document states that the workouts took place every morning on four consecutive days, and Brenner was in a group that began at 6 a.m. The lawsuit states that Taggart and Oderinde didn't review the training program with the school's sports medical staff, and Oregon failed to require them to do so.
According to the document, the workout lasted for 60 to 90 minutes, and the staff "did not make water available in the workout room for at least the first day of the workouts." The lawsuit also states that about 40 players in each group had to do "10 perfect push-ups in unison," and if one of the athletes was out of sync with the rest or failed to use perfect technique, all of the players had to do up-downs and start the drill over.
The lawsuit contends that over several days, "student athletes vomited, passed out, or collapsed during the workouts." It says that Oregon's medical staff "acknowledged that the workout went beyond the student athletes' natural limits after the first day, but rather than stop the workouts, university staff brought in oxygen tanks on the second day."
Oderinde, who later was hired by Taggart at Florida State for the same position, was suspended by Oregon in 2017 for a month without pay after tight end Cam McCormick and offensive lineman Sam Poutasi were hospitalized with Brenner and suffered from rhabdomyolysis as a result of workouts conducted shortly after Taggart was hired at Oregon.
