A second,
more explosive ESPN report places Robinson’s “drag his ass” approach to player wellness in the context of a broader, “toxic” football culture of abuse, intimidation, and aggressive, targeted limit-testing by the team’s coaches, particularly head coach D.J. Durkin and strength and conditioning coach Rick Court. Current and former players and staff say Durkin and Court use punishing, exhausting workouts as a way of pushing unwanted players out of the program, and in some cases use bizarre, unhealthy, and humiliating tactics to control players:
“They were trying to make me gain weight really, really fast,” said [one] player, who left the program. “That involved me overeating a lot, sometimes eating until I threw up. They always had me come back for extra meals. Once, I was sitting down eating with a coach, and he basically made me sit there until I threw up. He said to eat until I threw up. I was doing what they asked me to do, trying to gain the weight, but at the time, I just couldn’t gain the weight, and I guess they weren’t understanding that.”