5 college basketball players hospitalized after workout, coach suspended

RIVER FOREST, Ill. — A Division III school has suspended its basketball coach after five players went to the hospital after a workout.

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Concordia University’s Scott Kollar was temporarily removed from his position after the incident, a spokesman for the school told The Associated Press.

The workout happened after a late December trip to California, when the team was put through a “particularly high-intensity, collegiate-level circuit training” on Dec. 31, the university’s athletic director, Pete Gnan, said in a letter sent to families and obtained by ESPN. “It has been alleged by some that the intensity and difficulty of (the) practice was a direct consequence” of players breaking curfew while they were in California.

Five members of the team were hospitalized between Jan. 2 and Jan. 4, with the last player released from a hospital on Jan. 6, the AP reported. Jacob Collicott was the last player to be released from the hospital.

“It’s been a long few days,” Ryan Collicott, Jacob’s father, told WBBM. “He was, I guess, dehydrated. Plus the muscles were breaking down and getting into his bloodstream, I guess.”

The Concordia Cougars, a Division III team, postponed games they were supposed to play last Tuesday and Saturday, the AP reported.

“There were probably a lot of people and parents who would be like, ‘Fire the guy!’ I don’t feel that way, as a parent,” Ryan Collicott told WBBM. “I know him. I spoke to him. And I feel bad for him. And I’m more concerned for him now that I have my son right now.”

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