Seven Arizona State players asked for what ASU still won't give

Seven Arizona State players just did the thing their school still hasn't. They put their version of Aug. 20 in writing, even if they had to do it without their names. Their 26-page letter says ASU's review of Matthew Mayich's collapse got the basic facts wrong.

They want Greg Powers and his staff on leave before Friday's opener at Lindenwood.

Last week I said "not today" couldn't stay ASU's answer. The players just handed the school a better question to answer.

What the players say happened

The letter went through attorney Tim Casey to president Michael Crow. Copies went to the Maricopa County Attorney's Office and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes. The players left their names off because they fear retaliation.

Their account differs from the school's on almost every point that matters. The university put the workout at about 45 minutes. The players say it ran more than 75.

They say there was one water break, and it lasted seconds. It reached only the eight or so players who finished the bear crawl first. Mayich, they say, never got water.

They describe him in visible distress before he went down. And they say that once he did, there was "no immersion tub, no ice chest, no ice for cooling, no fan, and no stretcher."

"No one at ASU properly monitored him during the workout and no one intervened," the letter says.

ASU's own review found that nobody outside the program vetted the workout plan. It named no one as responsible. The school has confirmed it received the letter. It hasn't answered it in public.

What they're asking for

Four things. The coaching staff on administrative leave. An interim coach before Friday. An independent outside investigation. And a written promise that nobody loses a scholarship, a roster spot or playing time for cooperating.

Read that last one again. College kids had to ask, in writing, not to be punished for telling the truth about a teammate.

"We should not have to choose between telling the truth about August 20 and keeping what we have worked our whole lives for," the letter says.

Kessler's read

Every one of those requests is reasonable, and the fourth should cost ASU nothing. Put it in writing today. Put an interim behind the bench for Lindenwood. Hand the investigation to someone who doesn't answer to the athletic department.

That isn't a verdict on Powers. It's what a school does when it wants the kids still in that room to believe the next answer. Right now seven of them are saying they don't.

College hockey sells the brotherhood: the bus rides, the barns, the guys who'd go through a wall for each other. These players are living it.

Their teammate is still in a hospital bed, and they're the ones taking the risk to speak up. My call: ASU gives the written protection by Thursday and names an outside investigator before Friday. If it doesn't, this program opens its season with a bigger problem than Lindenwood.