According to a report from the Los Angeles times, a recent graduate of Glendale High School is suing the School District over the practices she took part in as a member of the water polo team.
Shushanik Gabrielyan states in the suit that “egregiously innapropriate” drills left her “sore, sick, lame and disabled”. There were few details about what those drills or practices exactly entailed, but coach Casey Sripramong was singled out for directing the practices.
Even in comparison to a sport like swimming that prides itself on hard work, Water Polo has a hard earned reputation for brutal training regimens. This Sports Illustrated article from 2004 details some of the preparation the US Olympic team used under Croatian coach Ratko Rudic, including eleven hour training days that top scorer Tony Azevedo described as “terrible”
However, in recent years Azevedo described to Swimswam a somewhat less drastic training regimen for the US Olympic team.
There was no comment from Sripramong or Glendale Unified School district. Spripramong is also a 2008 graduate of Glendale High School and was recently named head girls’ Aquatic coach.
Check out this case: Criminal charges filed against a water polo player.
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Bay-Area-athlete-15-charged-with-felony-over-6700824.php
Sore, sick, lame, and disabled. Check. Sounds like most polo practices I endured in high school and college. And many of the games!
But But But it was extremely intense your honor. I am entitled to $1M dollars. thank you very much.
Toughen up buttercup… Life is “extremely intense”…
A new low for soft, entitled, whiny student athletes. Why didn’t she just quit?
They key words here would be linking “egregiously inappropriate” to “disabled”, but there aren’t any details of either to make a comment on that particular case. Unless medical negligence can be proven with false information given in conjunction with inappropriate recommendations, (similar to the NFL with the concussions/brain injury cases), it seems it would be otherwise hard for the plaintiff to win the case since her participation on the team was voluntary.
What stood out to me here instead was the 11 hour training days described by Acevedo. I’d never heard him complain about anything and if it’s true, 11 hours of any hard training at that level does sound egregiously inappropriate in that it carries the risk of backfiring… Read more »
I thought this was an article from The Onion.
There is a difference between a difficult practice and a dangerous one. I don’t see anything here that would label this a dangerous one.