UC Berkeley Chancellor Dirks Makes Suckers Out of Public and Media With Still-Unlaunched Review of the Football Conditioning Program That Killed Ted Agu

Concussion Inc.’s ebook THE TED AGU PAPERS: A Black Life That Mattered – And the Secret History of a Covered-Up Death in University of California Football is available on Kindle-friendly devices at http://amzn.to/2aA2LDl. One hundred percent of royalties are being donated to sickle cell trait research and education.

by Irvin Muchnick

“Not ready yet.”

In early summer, Nicholas Dirks, the lame-duck chancellor at the University of California-Berkeley, promised a new-and-improved review of the strength and conditioning program of football coach Sonny Dykes’ assistant Damon Harrington. This was nearly two and a half years after Harrington’s bizarre rope-pulling and hill-climbing tongue-hanger killed Ted Agu in an exertional sickle cell trait incident covered up from the public, and from the medical examiner and police authorities of Alameda County.

Agu’s death was itself three months after player J.D. Hinnant’s arguably Harrington-inspired “code red” criminal assault of teammate Fabiano Hale, for missing a conditioning session and causing the others present to endure an extra set of the coach’s vomit-inducing “bear rolls.”

The university’s original “independent” review of Harrington’s crusader ways — which were designed to prevent Cal student-athletes from the humiliation of having “Stanford’s cock in your ass,” in the coach’s charming exhortation — had been submitted by an athletic department crony doctor and trainer in June 2014, and proved such an obvious whitewash that the chancellor felt compelled this year to promise the Review 2.0. He did so just before Janet Napolitano, the UC system president, sent Dirks packing, effective spring 2017.

“The university is in the midst of taking the steps necessary to launch the review,” spokesperson Dan Mogulof told Concussion Inc. on August 1.

“The recruitment of appropriate experts has progressed significantly,” he said on September 6.

“The review plan is being finalized,” he said on September 19, and estimated another week.

But … “not ready yet” was the word on September 27 — followed, effectively, by the admonition “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Meanwhile, this Thursday, November 3, will mark the six-week point since the campus California Public Records Act compliance office stated “four to six” weeks until release of documents, including emails, memorializing internal discussions of the handling of the Hinnant-Hale beatdown and the Agu negligent homicide.

Let’s see if there, too, the university that brought the world 73 Nobel laureates, the particle accelerator, and the Free Speech Movement chooses to continue to insult the intelligence of the 39 million citizens of California.

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“Explainer: How ‘Insider’ Access Made San Francisco Chronicle and Berkeley J-School Miss Real Story Behind Death of Cal Football’s Ted Agu,” https://concussioninc.net/?p=10931

Complete headline links to our Ted Agu series: https://concussioninc.net/?p=10877