WILL KARR
Editor in Chief
On Friday, April 14 at 11:30 a.m. in the Bob Steele Multi-Purpose Room in Steele Hall, members of The Leader, Will Karr (Editor in Chief), Max Hamilton (Sports Editor/Blackhorse Rugby President) and Travis Joyce (Chief PR Chair) met with representatives from different offices on campus, which included the Athletics Department, Campus Life and the Student Association, to discuss club sports and athlete Jason Winston’s injury.
All campus personnel attendees at the meeting are listed as follows: Jerry Fisk (director of athletics), Pucciarelli, Mark Suida (director of Campus Life), Rachel Martin (assistant director of Campus Life) and Vince Gugino (general manager of Student Association).
Athletics said that they were advised not to allow the meeting to be recorded by Marketing/Communications and the President’s Cabinet. Since the meeting was not recorded, The Leader requested a written statement about the incident.
The statement The Leader was provided with had a SUNY Fredonia logo, but Fisk refused to answer what department the statement was written by. When asked who the written statement was specifically from, Fisk responded “I think it’s best said that it is the university’s statement.”
At the meeting, representatives of The Leader asked if there was some sort of specific NCAA or university-level policy that would prevent a trainer from helping a club athlete in the event of a medical emergency such as Winston’s injury and never received a direct response or answer to that question from any office at the meeting.
Fisk briefly mentioned that there is a “memorandum of understanding” that athletics follows that says trainers and other medical personnel should give priority to NCAA athletes. However, he did not mention anything about the memorandum preventing a trainer from helping a club athlete. Fisk read the memorandum off a sheet of paper, but did not offer to share the document with Leader representatives.
Fisk also hypothesized that insurance issues could potentially prevent a certified trainer from helping non-Division III/NCAA athletes, but did not seem certain or definitive on this matter.
Pucciarelli explained how club sport leaders are trained at the beginning of every academic year in the fall on how to respond in the instance of an emergency when medical staff is not present such as calling University Police. However, these training sessions are only attended by club sports leaders like Hamilton, not by all club athletes.
As a club sport president, Hamilton attended this past fall session on Oct. 11, 2022. This training session is referenced in the university’s official statement.
The statement reads:
“All club sport leaders are invited to a training session at the start of each academic year to go over club sport procedures, including what to do if a student is injured. When a student was injured on February 21st, 2023 on the turf, the head of the club rugby team did exactly as he was instructed to in the initial meeting, and called University Police. As trained first responders, UPD officers arrived in under two minutes to begin providing treatment to the student and the ambulance was dispatched. The process of dealing with an injured club sport student was followed exactly as the university had intended to. Any claim that an injured student was denied medical care by SUNY Fredonia is completely inaccurate.”
The university refers to Winston as a club sport student. In the statement, the university attempts to refute any claims that Winston, who is a club sport athlete, was denied medical care by SUNY Fredonia by describing them as “inaccurate.”
In the last print issue of The Leader, an editorial was published on page three titled, “Student Safety Pushed to the Sidelines: What is the fine line between club and varsity sports?” The editorial said that “the [athletic] trainer did not provide [Winston] with care,” which is a true statement, and The Leader still stands by that statement.
In the editorial, The Leader acknowledged that University Police were called by teammates. The editorial directed readers to another article in the issue on page 20 titled, “Jason Winston’s Road to Recovery.” The article said, “UPD eventually came to the scene and dispatched an ambulance.” In this article, we acknowledged that “Hamilton promptly called UPD.”
“I think our perspective is that we’re just thankful that University Police came over and that the school gave medical treatment,” Fisk said. “Was it the trainer? It was not the trainer. Was it SUNY Fredonia as a whole? Yes it was.”
The Leader and all offices in attendance are thankful that Hamilton called UPD. Fisk said he hopes the “injured student,” Winston, is OK now.
“In short, SUNY Fredonia did not fail to treat the student. UP was there within two minutes, which is a very quick response time … thankfully it all had a good outcome in the end. I guess that’s the short of it all from our perspective,” Fisk said.