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The circle of relatives of a football player at the University of New Mexico who committed suicide in November sued the university, former football coach and the N.C.A.A.
By David W. Chen
While the University of New Mexico football team suffered another season of wear and tear last fall, Nahje Flowers, a defensive lineman, began complaining to his friends and advisers that his coaches were forcing him to play, even though he had injuries, severe headaches and depression.
On November 5, he sent an early morning text message “as if he were saying that his antidepressants “didn’t help him.”By the time a friend rushed to his apartment, Flowers was dead, due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to a report from the Albuquerque Police Department, he was 21 years old.
Last week, Flowers’ parents, in their first public comments since their son’s death, announced at a virtual news convention that they had filed a federal lawsuit in New Mexico for negligence; Bob Davie, the team’s coach at the time; and the N.C.A.A.
The trial accuses Davie of ignoring the medical recommendation that he recommended Flowers take a break from the sport. Wolf’s black and white athletes were treated differently, according to demand, as white athletes had free time for their injuries, while Flowers did not.For decades, the NCAA says, failed to protect players, such as Flowers, with symptoms of brain damage.
“I am confident that the circle of relatives at the University of New Mexico will take care of him,” said the player’s mother, Vickie Gilmore, with her husband, La’Vonte Flowers, and one of his lawyers, Mika Hilaire, in Los Angeles Hilaire.office.” I never imagined I’d go from home through funeral arrangements.
Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for the Flowers family, attacked the N.C.A.A.
“At best, they turned a blind eye, they didn’t follow their procedures properly,” he said from Milwaukee, where he was heading to a news convention on behalf of another client, Jacob Blake’s family circle, a black guy who recently shot through a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin.”At worst, they just didn’t care enough about the young man who played football to be fit when that contrasted with the big corporation of school football.
The N.C.A.A.se denied commenting on the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages in the charges, adding death by negligence, negligence and civil rights violations.
The trial comes at a difficult time for the Wolves: all Mountain West groups are adapting to the postponement of autumn sports due to coronavirus and the expected loss of football revenue.a Santa Fe basketball rookie, NM, who had re-elected himself from 2021 elegance so he can play for the Wolves this winter.
Then there is the long shadow of Davie, who fired shortly after Flowers’ death.A former Notre Dame head coach and ESPN analyst, Davie compiled a 35-64 record in 8 years and was suspended for 30 days in 2018 after being charged.to mistreat players. He had two years left on his contract.
In an email, Davie’s lawyer, Michael K.Kennedy said his consumer had not yet noticed the complaint from Flowers’ circle of relatives.”
Cinnamon Blair, the university’s director of marketing and communications, said she could comment on any dispute.But she said: “The intellectual and physical well-being of our academics is of paramount importance to the University of New Mexico, and the loss of a student is tragic and profoundly affects the entire Lobo community.
The university awarded Flowers a post-state degree in sign language interpretation in a virtual rite in May.
Flowers, a 6-foot-3-inch, 278-pound red-shirt junior at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles.93 for the Wolves.
During the 2019 season, Flowers “wanted a time out of the game because of the constant pain he felt for the concussions he had suffered,” the complaint reads.”But defendant Robert Davie refused to pay attention to Nahje and Nahje’s doctors.”and forced him to keep playing.”
Robert C.Hilliard, a lawyer for the Flowers family, founded in Corpus Christi, Texas, added at the press convention that Wolves’ assistant coaches “were compassionate, but responded to the coach.”
The day after Flowers’ death, Davie sent an email to university officials expressing their considerations – a few months ago, he said – that “the recommendation of our student-students won ‘inadequate’ due to a shortage of resources and staff,” according to the documents received.through NM Fishbowl’s Daniel Libit, who monitors Wolf Athletics.
So, the questions of who knew what and when at college and N.C.A.A. levels.they’ll probably be at the center of the lawsuit.
“It doesn’t matter what my blog is,” said Libit, who now runs The Intercollegiate, a college sports news site.”You can dedicate several educational journals to the social sciences to analyze the morals and management that surrounded Bob Davie’s reign and its slow ending.”
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