Аризона Стэйт их сургуулийн хоккейн тоглогч цэргийн хэв маягийн бэлтгэлийн үеэр ухаан алджээ

Arizona State 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, multiple sources briefed on the incident told The Athletic.

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. 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 numerous calls, text messages and an email with questions about his background, training, and objectives for the workout. When reached by The Republic, Ziesel declined to talk about the workout and referred the paper to ASU, 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 Thursday, a person close to the family confirmed. That person spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

Responding to questions Thursday, Arizona State spokesperson Chris Fiscus said 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 the university is reviewing the circumstances around the workout.

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. 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 an outside 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.

“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,” said Rebecca Stearns, COO of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut. “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.”

Rod Walters, an athletic trainer and consultant focused on athlete safety, has seen a decline in the prevalence of military-style workouts among school athletic teams. Too many incidents have resulted in harm to athletes, independent investigations and negative publicity, he said

“It’s going the other way because of problems like that,” Walters said. “If you’re bringing somebody in to do a workout, you better be vetting that person and making sure they are science-based.”

An instructor from outside the team brings enhanced risk because, for one, they don’t know the individual players and what each can handle. The potential for danger grows if the instructor uses exercises outside the sport, which create unrealistic expectations for what the athletes can tolerate.

After returning from summer break in September 2024, the Tufts men’s lacrosse team participated in a workout led in part by a third party with a background in Navy SEAL training. It consisted of burpees and other upper-body-focused exercises. Twenty-four of 61 players who performed the workout developed rhabdomyolysis, which includes symptoms such as extreme soreness and potential kidney failure. Nine were hospitalized.

Walters helped lead an independent investigation that found that the Navy SEAL who ran the Tufts workout had no credentials to lead group exercise and was not versed in the NCAA’s guidelines for physical acclimation. The Tufts athletic department also had done little to no vetting of the SEAL or his workout plan, which did not mirror the movements associated with lacrosse.

“The Navy SEAL Workout was not exercise science-based, physiologically sport-specific or tailored to the individual sport of lacrosse,” the report read.

A workout based on military training is not inherently dangerous. Jason Kuhn, a retired Navy SEAL who has worked with teams on leadership and conditioning, believes firmly in the value of applying military lessons to other aspects of society.

But, Kuhn said, those lessons must be applied appropriately. When he worked with teams, Kuhn asked coaches about players’ condition and scaled workouts accordingly. He implored players to share any injuries — the objective was to become a better player, not prove toughness. After each drill, Kuhn provided a water break and a “heads-shoulders-knees-toes check” for pain. On hot days, he splashed water on players, which “adds to fun and the military-style theme,” Kuhn said. “It’s really just to keep their body cool.”

“You want to push them just a little bit beyond their mental boundaries, but not so far that it’s something dangerous,” Kuhn said. “It’s a completely different thing we’re training for. In BUD/S (a SEAL qualification course), we’re training for war, and we’re making special operators. There’s inherent risk that is acceptable with that that is not acceptable with training athletes.”

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.

In a 2024 podcast, Ziesel talked about growing up in a missionary family in Puerto Rico, South Africa and Guam and said he spent time in the military in Afghanistan, Eastern Europe and the Middle East before being called to attend seminary. He said that global upbringing and his military service shaped him as an adult:

“God’s made me a protector at heart, to say the least.”

The Aug. 20 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.

“A lack of progression and sport-specificity in the volume, intensity, mode and duration of conditioning programs in transition periods has been noted as a primary factor in nontraumatic fatalities,” the guidelines read.

Matthew Mayich transferred to Arizona State from Clarkson this past offseason. (Dan Squicciarini / NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Over the offseason, 18 new players joined the Sun Devils roster, including Mayich, a Stoney Creek, Ontario, native who 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.

On the day Mayich collapsed, the temperature in Tempe was 86 degrees at 6:51 a.m. with 51 percent humidity and no wind, according to the Weather Underground website. Based on those conditions, the National Weather Service recommends 15 minutes of break for every hour of exercise.

Lt. Colonel David DeGroot, director of the Heat Center at Martin Army Community Hospital, has published numerous studies on the effects of heat on athletes. In an email, he said acclimation in the fall takes 10 to 14 days of exposure, and that more and longer rest in the shade reduces risks.

“Particularly for fall sports, with preseason practice during the late summer months, the lack of acclimation to the heat is the primary concern,” DeGroot said.

The first workouts of a new season are also when athletes — especially athletes new to a team — are least likely to protect themselves, according to DeGroot. Their internal motivation to prove themselves or earn a role may cause them to push past a point their bodies can handle.

“Coaches, trainers, and athletes need to be aware of the role of motivation in exertional heat stroke,” DeGroot said. “It is very challenging to mitigate the risk of excessive motivation, so coaches and trainers need to be prepared to recognize and react if a heat-related collapse occurs.”

The Athletic spoke to three individuals with experience in athletic training and strength and conditioning for high-level athletes at the NHL and college level, and all agreed there is no performance-related reason for a hockey player to train in the heat.

Outdoor summer workouts, when many athletes are going through the “transition” period generally considered the riskiest, present a number of challenges, according to Dr. Stephen Paul, who previously served as University of Arizona’s Director of Athletic Medicine.

“We don’t do any outdoor practice without a full preseason evaluation, and we don’t do any without the knowledge or practice of an EAP (Emergency Action Plan),” said Paul, who stressed that he did not have knowledge about the Arizona State incident and could not comment on that situation specifically.

Paul said the presence of medical personnel — normally an athletic trainer — would be required and the availability of a cold tub and rectal thermometer would be key, as would vigilant monitoring of whether players “drop down” in any capacity during a workout.

Exertional heat stroke can be fatal in up to a third of cases if untreated, DeGroot said. If cooled within 30 minutes of collapse, he said, the mortality rate falls to nearly zero. A cold tub is the best tool, but if that’s unavailable, bed sheets soaked in ice water are useful. Some form of on-location cooling is considered essential.

Ideally, coaches and schools can follow precautions to avoid the worst-case scenario. The most basic save lives. When players gather for late-summer practices to start a long season, coaches need to resist the temptation to test them immediately.

“The first day,” Stearns said, “should never be the hardest workout.”

Nathan Fenno contributed to this report.