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Penn State head football coach James Franklin has been accused of interfering with medical decision regarding players by a former team doctor.
During testimony in a lawsuit by another former Penn State team doctor, Scott Lynch, Dr. Pete Seidenberg claimed that James Franklin and then-Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour tried to medically disqualify a player who try to kill himself by jumping out of a window.
“Thankfully someone stopped him,” Seidenberg said about the player, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Seidenberg claimed that medically disqualifying the player would mean revoking his scholarship so Franklin could offer it to another player.
Whether that is true is the subject of debate due to the Big Ten announcing it would guarantee scholarships in 2014.
That case, however, was just one of many attempts James Franklin made to interfere with medical decisions that Seidenberg and Lynch claimed to have occurred.
Lynch, who served as Penn State’s director of athletic medicine and orthopedic consultant to the football team, claims he was fired in 2019 because he refused to “allow a coach to interfere with his medical treatment and return-to-play decisions.”
He also claims that he reported this interference to Penn State Athletics and Penn State Health.
Seidenberg backed up Lynch’s claims, saying during testimony that he, Lynch, and the chief athletic trainer were instructed to alter their medical decisions and the treatment advice for Nittany Lions football players.
He shared one such incident in which Franklin wanted them to medically clear a player.
“Coach was trying to get us to release the athlete for return to play,” he stated. “We were being pressured to release the athlete. There was a discussion. Coach was trying to influence medical decisions.”
Seidenberg also claims that Franklin wanted to copy a sign that he saw posted in the Michigan locker room which read, “The unmotivated player, the out-of-shape player, the hurt player, and the bad player all look the same.”
He said he felt that such a sign would encourage “hurt players to hide their injuries and not report them to the medical team.”