Program Note on Developing Stories at Concussion Inc.

by Irvin Muchnick

Concussion Inc. anticipates publishing little content from late June through early July. My entire family will be traveling to China shortly for a roots tour with my 13-year-old daughter, who hasn’t been back there since just before her first birthday.

Several major stories here have moved in the direction of important new developments. These include:

• The 2014 Ted Agu death cover-up in Cal football. August 1 is the date of the next hearing in my California Public Records Act lawsuit against the University of California Regents. In the meantime, before going on hiatus, we’ll be pointing to parallels in the newest college football conditioning death, that of Jordan McNair at the University of Maryland. Our most recent Agu article: https://concussioninc.net/?p=13003. Complete chronological links: https://concussioninc.net/?p=10877.

• Sarah Ehekircher’s persistence in getting to the bottom of the fraudulent official responses to her allegations of grooming and abuse by her teen coach, Scott MacFarland, continues with her second meeting, scheduled for June 25, with USA Swimming CEO Tim Hinchey. This is a story that touches many prominent Olympic coaches and top swimming programs in multiple regions of the country. Our most recent Ehekircher article, which includes complete chronological links: https://concussioninc.net/?p=13012.

• The campaign to extradite and try former Irish Olympic swimming head coach George Gibney for multitudinous sex crimes — including his 1991 rape of a 17-year-old athlete on an American training trip — proceeds on two fronts. One is conversations between Irish legislator Maureen O’Sullivan and American counterpart Jackie Speier.. Another is a newly opened investigation of Gibney by the U.S. Center for SafeSport. Our most recent Gibney articles: https://concussioninc.net/?p=12944; https://concussioninc.net/?p=12935. Complete chronological links: https://concussioninc.net/?p=10942.

• In 2014 my colleague Tim Joyce and I broke the story of Brazilian swimming coach Alex Pussieldi’s decade-long reign of terror in South Florida following USA Swimming’s inaction on complaints that he physically battered a Mexican swimmer under his charge at the Fort Lauderdale program of the late Hall of Famer coach Jack Nelson. Pussieldi, who also coached the Kuwaiti national swim team, human-trafficked scores of swimmers from Central and South America and the Middle East, and left a trail of accusations of sexual abuse before returning to his native country. In Brazil, there is renewed scrutiny of Pussieldi and of other coaches with transnational abuse histories. Our most recent Pussieldi article: https://concussioninc.net/?p=12618. Complete chronological links: https://concussioninc.net/?p=8652.