A Former Penn State Doctor Is Accusing James Franklin Of Interfering With The Medical Team's Decisions
Well this is a pretty serious accusation....better than the last guy though, right?
Anyways, the way this story goes is that Dr. Scott Lynch, former Director of Athletic Medicine at Penn State, filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired for not going along with James Franklin's desires in determining medical decisions of his players. So in this civil trial, Dr. Pete Seidenberg, the former Team Physician of Penn State Football, dropped this BOMB:
Seidenberg detailed a situation when Franklin and then-Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour wanted a player who attempted suicide to be medically disqualified from the team while he was receiving treatment in short-term psychiatric care.
Oh boy. This seems like the kind of story that in the year 2024, Coaches can and would get fired, no? Then again, I certainly need to hear both sides of the story, as well as the facts, before jumping to anything crazy like that. And I'll be honest with you, I left the word Suicide out of the title of this blog because it's such a serious accusation, and there's some kind of fishy things going on in this article...
If that player was medically disqualified, it would’ve caused him to lose his scholarship.
That's just not true? He'd still have his scholarship. Medical disqualifications happen all the time, including direct examples at Penn State, and kids still remain on scholarship. That seems like a pretty big part to miss in the article. Plus, it also must be noted that Lynch and his lawyer missed the filing deadline to include James Franklin and Penn State Athletics in this lawsuit, so the guy is suing his current employer, Penn State Health, instead.
Seidenberg added that he declined to give into the pressure from Franklin and Barbour. He included other instances in which he thought Franklin overstepped in trying to get his way on medical decisions.
I'll be honest, I assume most big time college football coaches try to influence their opinion into medical decisions. I mean, you think Nick Saban didn't try to get his players to play through pain? Obviously if they're saying things like "don't say you have a headache" so they don't go into concussion protocol that's one thing, but getting in on medical decisions isn't anything new.
And then to further the accusations, he randomly jumps from pressuring team doctors to ankle taping over the Nike logo….
Lynch’s lawyers reportedly argued Tuesday that Nike could find the school for “unauthorized spatting,” which is ankle taping, that covers the brand’s logo on the player’s shoes. It could be viewed as a breach of contract for restricting logo placement.
Huh? This just seems like a lot of throwing things at the wall from an employee who was fired 5 years ago. Are we talking about ankle taping over the Nike logo, or are we talking about trying to overrule injury decisions? I wonder if Franklin will even address these allegations? Seems like a character assassination attempt to me, but now that media companies are picking up on it, I'm sure the injury portion will at least have to be looked into. Could be really bad for Franklin if they find anything notable, but could be absolutely nothing as well.