'Coach speaks from ignorance': Mom of late Northwestern player slams Scott Frost's 'vomiting' claim

This is the 21st August since Linda Will’s then-22-year-old son, Rashidi Wheeler, collapsed during conditioning drills and died on a Northwestern University football practice field. The Cook County (Ill.) Coroner declared his cause of death a bronchial asthma attack. 

“Every moment, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed, you live it – this recurring nightmare,” Will said. “But August is the worst. We dread August.”

It’s why Will shuddered last week when she learned Nebraska coach Scott Frost reported on his radio show that the Cornhuskers’ offensive linemen vomit 15 to 20 times at practice while being directed by new line coach Donovan Raiola.

“That mentality that he expressed remains prevalent, and it’s just like the drill that my son passed from: In order to compete, the coaches feel they want to know what it takes to make a player break,” Will said.

“I’m all for hard work, but when you institute methods that make a player vomit or collapse, we’ve lost all sense. Why we think we have to push a person to this degree is beyond scientific explanation, and it’s a mindset that has to be changed. Instead of building a player up, some of them play upon the player’s fear: ‘Am I going to lose my position? My playing time?’”

When he detailed the vomiting on the radio show, Frost said of his players, “It’s not because they’re not in shape — (Raiola’s) just working them hard. I think they love it. He’s kind of freed them up to go be aggressive and I love the way they’re coming off the ball.”

A former Nebraska quarterback, Frost declined to respond to USA TODAY Sports regarding his conditioning philosophy in questions emailed to him through Nebraska’s football spokesman.

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The spokesman pointed to a brief Sunday news conference statement Frost made regarding the criticism that followed his practice-field revelation.

“I was trying to portray how hard the O-line has been working and how proud of them I am,” Frost said at the availability. “I might’ve exaggerated puking a little bit, but the important thing is I want to make sure everybody understands our training staff and weight staff do an unbelievable job of keeping me abreast of everything going on at practice.

“We have heart monitors. We know their complete output. We cut back practice if we think it’s getting too hard, if the guys are spent too much. … (We) try to keep them healthy and fresh.”

Whether Frost was exaggerating on the radio or not, Will says she’s disturbed that he used the vomiting anecdote as a display to further the archaic theory that breaking-point training is paramount to football success.

The risk and gravity of prescribing to that premise is underlined by the lawsuit Will filed against Northwestern, which netted her (and her attorneys) what was reported as a $16 million settlement that Will said this week ended up at $17 million.

“They don’t print up enough money to replace a child, and money can’t buy you happiness,” Will said.

A senior safety, Wheeler died Aug. 3, 2001, after he and Northwestern teammates were assigned a rigorous and mandatory set of conditioning sprints on an 82-degree afternoon.

His teammates later revealed that the coaching staff had implied depth-chart rankings would be affected by the players’ sprint times, a clear violation of NCAA bylaws that stipulated those early August days as a voluntary practice period.

Wheeler’s wrongful-death case brought famed attorney Johnnie Cochran to represent his family, and Rev. Jesse Jackson made impassioned pleas at the funeral for college football’s leaders to more forcefully confront abusive summer practice behavior by coaches.

Since then, global temperatures have climbed and the stakes in college football have never been higher.

Will hoped all along that, as a legacy to her son, the drumbeat for player safety would exact protections sparing other parents from the grief she navigates daily.

“Losing Rashidi just destroyed us,” Will said, revealing that her older son, George, later committed suicide and that she’s battled through serious health matters, including cancer.

“I see Rashidi’s old friends now, and they’ve been married and had young children. To know you’ll never experience that level of happiness, to know it’s not going to get any better … I feel like my life has been an entire waste.

“All the hard work, the discipline, the goals … what was it for? To cope with tragedy and pain? To know his hopes and expectations are gone? Rashidi was everything to me. Now, I’m alone. And for this to be the outcome is a cruel joke.”

When she learned that Frost and Nebraska traveled to Dublin, Ireland, this week to open their season Saturday against Big Ten Conference rival Northwestern, she was nudged to raise her voice in her son’s name again.

Wheeler played his final football game against Nebraska in the 2000 Alamo Bowl.

Northwestern’s disciplinarian-coach Randy Walker was driven to toughen up his program in preparation for the ensuing Big Ten campaign.

Then-Northwestern running back Jason Wright, who’s now president of the Washington Commanders, recounted the severity of Walker’s drills to the Los Angeles Times hours after Wheeler’s death:

“What we have to do is 10 100-meter sprints, eight 80s, six 60s and four 40s,” Wright said. “We have 14 seconds to do the 100s, 12 seconds to do the 80s, nine seconds for the 60s and seven seconds for the 40s, with that amount of time to rest between each run.

“I collapsed and fell unconscious, too. I got up, threw up and was as happy as I’ve ever been that I passed. Then I heard someone say, ‘Rashidi lost his pulse.’”

As there was at Northwestern then, there’s urgency at Nebraska, too, with Frost planted squarely on the hot seat following a 3-9 showing that marked his fourth consecutive losing season and dropped him to 15-29.

Touting to the fan base how hard the school’s famed – but recently struggling – offensive line is working has obvious public-relations value.

“I know a lot got made out of that,” Frost said Sunday. “I can assure you … we’re doing everything we can to keep the guys healthy, and that’s our No. 1 priority.”

Walking back the radio comments indicates “(Nebraska administrators) pulled his coattails, for sure,” Will speculates.

From Will’s perspective, Frost can do more for football players, like no longer spreading the myth that pushing athletes to the brink during scorching summer days will equal victories.

“This coach speaks from ignorance, from an old mentality that was instilled in him, but ignorance is not stupidity. It just means you can learn and do better,” Will said. “As the saying goes: ‘When you know better, you do better.’

“Why not focus in on better honing their skills? We all want to win. Conditioning the body, surpassing what you expected of yourself, can be personally uplifting. The player would rather know the coach is thinking that instead of thinking about what it takes to destroy me.

“Is that really necessary to win? No, it’s not, so let’s put some more joy in it.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nebraska's Scott Frost vomiting comments upset Rashidi Wheeler's mom