Arizona State University hockey player Matthew Mayich was participating in a punishing military-style outdoor team workout when he collapsed Aug. 20 and was taken to a hospital, where he reportedly remained in a coma as of Saturday.
The Athletic spoke with multiple people briefed on the workout, which lasted approximately 60 minutes and was considered both atypical and extreme. Speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, they said it consisted of sprints, planks, push-ups and bear crawls with an emphasis on repeating instructions back to the instructor and keeping a correct count of each exercise. Players who failed to do either or lagged behind other groups were forced to complete extra sprints or exercises.
"Athletes were instructed not to complain, which some interpreted as an order not to speak up if they were struggling," Katie Strang and Adam Kilgore of The Atheltic reported. "According to two sources, the instructor left the workout before the final activity — a run with a medicine ball the length of a football field and back — was completed."
The Athletic has confirmed the instructor as former military service member Tim Ziesel, a non-university employee who was first identified by The Arizona Republic.
Ziesel, 39, did not respond to The Athletic's numerous attempts to question his background, training and workout objectives. Ziesel declined to talk about the workout to The Arizona Republic, saying he didn’t know “the whole situation” and “wasn’t tracking what all is going on with this.”
Mayich, a 21-year-old defenseman and St. Louis Blues draft pick, remained hospitalized and in critical condition late last week, according to The Athletic, citing an anonymous source. Total Pro Sports reported Saturday that Mayich remained in a coma after suffering what investigators believe could have been a cardiac event during the workout session Thursday morning in Tempe. Doctors continue to treat the former NHL draft pick at a local hospital as his family and teammates wait for updates.
Arizona State spokesperson Chris Fiscus said Thursday that the school’s athletic department has heat illness guidelines in place, informed by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, and institutional guidelines and requirements relating to the engagement of outside entities that interact with student-athletes. Fiscus declined to answer questions about who authorized the Aug. 20 workout and whether any coaches or trainers were present. He said then that the university is reviewing the circumstances around the workout.
Ziesel has a limited online footprint but has referenced serving in the Navy and Army, including in the Special Forces as a Green Beret. A 2009 Navy news release referenced him as a hospitalman and a National Naval Medical Center assistant command fitness leader, according to The Athletic.
The training session took place on the first day of Arizona State’s fall semester, the earliest NCAA rules allow hockey teams to start formal activities. NCAA guidelines warn against intense exercise early in the season, per The Athletic.
Eighteen new players joined the Sun Devils roster this offseason. Mayich, a native of Stoney Creek, Ont., transferred from Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. The NCAA’s guidelines on heat safety note that players like Mayich — new to a program, and therefore a new climate — could be particularly susceptible to risk, The Athletic reported.
Military-style workouts, often cited as team-building exercises designed to cultivate toughness, are controversial, with some coaches espousing their effectiveness and others cautioning against what they see as unnecessary risks, The Athetic reported. Multiple independent experts cited NCAA recommendations and widely established standards that discourage early season conditioning in the heat to prevent harmful outcomes.
The inclusion of a third-party instructor using military-style training — loosely defined as group conditioning led by a motivational figure focused on body-weight strengthening movements such as burpees, push-ups or crawls — raised red flags among multiple athlete safety experts who spoke to The Athletic.
“There’s a number of previous cases that have shown athlete hospitalizations because of something like applying military-type tactics or training to an organized sports team that’s in high school or college, which just is not appropriate or necessary,” Rebecca Stearns, COO of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, told The Athletic. “A lot of data points to the fact that in most of those cases, there was some sort of punishment involved in the activity. We know that punishment in the form of exercise is not a successful approach if you want your athletes to live.”
In a separate article Monday bylined by Strang, Kilgore and Nathan Fenno, The Athletic reported that an attorney representing Mayich’s family said Arizona State is mishandling the investigation into the collapse and hospitalization and called on members of the coaching staff to be put on administrative leave.
“It’s very clear to me that this is a time when adults have to do the right thing — sometimes the right thing is the hard thing — and from everything I can tell and the leads we have, ASU is not handling this responsibly,” said Rob Carey, the former deputy chief attorney general of Arizona, who added the university “seems to be circling the wagons.”
