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Former Indiana players detail allegations of injury mistreatment in reports
Former Indiana football players have come forward with beliefs their injuries weren’t treated properly while playing under former coach Kevin Wilson.
A report by the Indiana Daily Student details four players’ injuries and the circumstances surrounding them. Wilson resigned from the school last week and was replaced by defensive coordinator Tom Allen. According to athletic director Fred Glass, Wilson’s resignation came as a result of “philosophical differences” after discussions between the two.
According to the report, former offensive lineman Bernard Taylor suffered an injury to his left ring finger and football trainers only gave him an MRI after continued pain didn’t go away. The left ring finger injury then led to a wrist injury
The MRI found he had a hole in his knuckle. Taylor said IU handled it by putting a splint on, which held his pinky and ring fingers together and traveled down the length of his hand ending at the tip of his lunate bone in his wrist. He then dislocated that lunate bone. Taylor said the dislocation came from a lack of mobility from the splint. The surgery in Carmel came the next morning.
He told the IDS that coaches told him the injury came as a result of poor technique.
Another player, ex-defensive lineman Nick Carovillano, said he was refused treatment for a back injury that turned out to be herniated discs. He told the IDS that trainers told him to “stop being a p*****.”
Carovillano’s injury situation was also mentioned in a report by the Indianapolis Star. He told the Star that once the training staff realized he was hurt they treated him with respect. Wilson didn’t.
“Once they figured out that I was actually hurt, I’d say the entire attitude of the trainers and the coaches completely changed for me,” he said. “They were a lot nicer, more caring, wanting to help me with my injury. Everybody except Wilson.”
He said Wilson would berate players who were in the medical tent and unable to fully participate during practices. The IDS report notes “many” former and current players defended Wilson. Indiana officials didn’t comment for the IDS story while Wilson declined comment in the Star’s report.
“He would come over and yell at us, saying, ‘I’m paying $70,000 a year for you to sit on your ass,’” Carovillano said. “That happened about halfway through the season and carried on to the end of it. If you were injured, he just wanted to make you feel like crap. He just wanted to make you feel bad, so you basically would stop being injured.”
Carovillano left the school in April of 2015. His complaint of treatment triggered an external investigation into the way injured players were treated at Indiana. Glass told Wilson after the investigation that “any comments attributed to you and your staff, whether said in jest or not, which have the effect of pressuring or demeaning injured players are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
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Wilson received a contract extension at Indiana in January following a Pinstripe Bowl appearance at the end of the 2015 season. During the press conference announcing Wilson’s resignation, Glass said there was no “smoking gun” or a single occurrence that led to the resignation.
The allegations of mistreatment at Indiana follow mistreatment allegations that led to the firing of former Illinois coach Tim Beckman in 2015. Beckman was fired days before the season began after Illinois found in its investigation that Beckman “violated standards related to sports medicine protocols and scholarships.”
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Nick Bromberg is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
