According to a report from The Athletic, the Mayich family has retained attorney Rob Carey, a former deputy attorney general of Arizona. Carey told The Athletic on Monday that he believes Arizona State is mishandling its review of the circumstances surrounding Matthew Mayich, the sophomore defenseman who collapsed during a workout Aug. 20 and remains hospitalized.
Carey also called for members of the hockey coaching staff to be placed on administrative leave.
“It’s very clear to me that this is a time when adults have to do the right thing — sometimes the right thing is the hard thing — and from everything I can tell and the leads we have, ASU is not handling this responsibly,” said Rob Carey, the former deputy chief attorney general of Arizona, who added the university “seems to be circling the wagons.”
College Hockey Insider previously reported that the Sun Devils were participating in what multiple sources who were present described as a “military-style workout.”
The program began around 7 a.m. MST and included approximately 45-50 minutes of exercise, interspersed with breaks during which an instructor spoke to the players about leadership and communication, sources said.
Sources described the workout as “cadence-driven” and said it included “military-style calisthenics,” including push-ups, flutter kicks and runs on the track and across the field.
The workout was led by Tim Ziesel, a former Green Beret, according to The Arizona Republic.
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Buddy Rake, Ziesel’s attorney, disputed the workout’s reported rigors, telling 12News in Phoenix last week: “There isn’t a D1 athlete on the planet that would describe this as a hard day of exercising, including the ASU hockey team.”
Carey, a partner at the law firm Hagens Berman, blasted those comments and similar reports as “fictional” and part of a “false narrative” he considers an attempt by those involved in the workout to manipulate the truth.
“I’ve already gotten information on what happened that day, and I’m very confident it was a grueling, onerous and dangerous workout,” Carey said, pushing back against suggestions it was a team-bonding exercise consisting of light calisthenics.
Arizona State athletic director Graham Rossini told the Arizona Sports Burns & Gambo Show on Friday that the university was reviewing the circumstances surrounding the workout.
“We are reviewing the situation,” Rossini said. “Obviously, we want to collect a lot of information and understand what happened. That’s a really, really important distinction — that we are reviewing it. This is not an investigation. So, we’re collecting information, and if there are things that we need to identify and learn from, we’re going to do that.
“But this is not an investigation where somebody’s suggesting something went wrong. We’re just reviewing the facts and understanding the scenario.”
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“A kid’s life was basically ruined, the family is devastated, and people refuse to accept responsibility,” Carey said.
Last week, Chris Fiscus, vice president of ASU media relations, said the school’s athletic department has heat illness guidelines in place, informed by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, and institutional guidelines and requirements relating to the engagement of outside entities who interact with student-athletes. Fiscus declined to answer questions about who authorized the Aug. 20 workout and whether any coaches or trainers were present.
Fiscus said last week the review would be led by ASU senior vice president James Rund, who, according to his ASU biography, also serves as the executive vice chair for Sun Devil Sports and filled in as ASU’s interim vice president for Sun Devil Athletics in 2023-24. Rund received his doctorate in education from Arizona State.