Willie Lowe, Iowa DB Hospitalized After Workout, Requests Transfer

Iowa’s infamous January workout that hospitalized thirteen Hawkeye football players already cost them one player of the future in blue-chip recruit Cyrus Kouandjio. As of late Tuesday night, it appears at least one present player is out the door as well: Rising senior defensive back Willie Lowe, who was stricken with rhabdomyolysis along with a dozen teammates, has requested his release from the program. To hear the way he’s talking to Joe Schad, it sounds like we might not see Lowe on the field this season at all:

It’s grim news for a program that seems as eager to move past the incident as it was to gloss over the problem in the first place altogether. The school has cleared the hospitalized players for spring practice, but if Lowe is still this far from full strength, who else might be ailing under the radar? SB Nation’s Black Heart Gold Pants has a bad feeling about whatever news comes next:

For more on the report itself and further discussion, visit Black Heart Gold Pants, where we’re sure they’re thrilled to not have to type “rhabdomyolysis” ever again.

With the release over the weekend of the 13 hospitalized Iowa football players, laid low last week by a kidney ailment commonly linked to overexertion, and with both the head coach and the athletic director actually back in Iowa and available for comment, it’s time for everybody’s favorite part of any unfortunate incident: Catty recriminations! Here’s Kirk Ferentz, leading things off with an unprecedented display of real-seeming human emotion:

These young men and their families have been through a difficult and trying time. They are under my supervision and watch, and I am truly sorry for what they’ve experienced. They trained extremely hard and ended up in the hospital, and there is no indication they did anything wrong. So, I’m pleased they are progressing well and I look forward to seeing all of them being back to normal.

But it wouldn’t be an Iowa football crisis without some ill-placed swiping at the chattering class, who just refuses to let Kirk Ferentz get on with his life and Iowa football hospitalize its players in peace!

Five Iowa football players have been released from the hospital following a bout with rhabdomyolysis, a severe kidney disease brought on by stress to the body. In total, 13 Iowa players were sent to the hospital after a going through a workout that reportedly involved doing 100 squats at 240 pounds in a short amount of time.

According to the Sporting News, the players’ injuries were serious enough that it made menial tasks nearly impossible after the workouts, with many struggling to function normally.

Drug tests for the 13 hospitalized Iowa football players have reportedly come back clean. The players haven’t yet been released, but there’s one of many possible causes for the widespread collapse off the board:

The tests were issued at the behest of doctors at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics to help determine causes of the muscle and kidney ailment that brought the players to the hospital. Cocaine and other amphetamines are known to exacerbate cases of rhabdomyolysis, the condition that likely befell the players after intense offseason workouts in the last week.

The test results do not rule out the possibility that over-the-counter supplements might have played a role in the players’ poor health.

Suppose the school will have to go back to calling them lazy now, no?

The latest Iowa athletic department press conference, held Wednesday afternoon to address the hospitalization of 13 Hawkeye football players, was quite the eye-opener, with all relevant personnel on hand to answer any -- I’m sorry; I’m being told that this is still Iowa football, and it was therefore nothing like that. No Kirk Ferentz. No athletic director. No strength coaches. Just the hapless-appearing director of football operations, who seemed put-upon to even acknowledge that Something Happened.

SB Nation’s Black Heart Gold Pants states flatly, “It’s pretty obvious by now that Kirk Ferentz doesn’t care about PR,” and points out what’s really been bothering us about this whole episode: That the university seemed to taken aback at having to respond in the first place:

The university expected nobody to reveal that the hospitalization was the proximate result of severe training right off a break that was allegedly intensified by peer pressure without S&C coach intervention. That secret, obviously, didn’t stay secret.

Still, they concede, the already-icy backlash could have been so much worse:

Ahh, rhabdomyolysis. You “breakdown of muscle fibers resulting in the release of muscle fiber contents (myoglobin) into the bloodstream” according to Google Health, you. In English, rhabdomyolysis is a condition that causes an individual’s innards to mingle in unpleasant, but not typically lethal, manners, and is caused by overdoing it during a workout.

The school also said that players are still in safe and stable condition, but did not announce the names of any specific players.

Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz is on the road recruiting, and hasn’t been able to comment or visit his players yet.

There’s still no report on what caused these players to need to be admitted en masse, with flu, food poisoning, staph infections, and the like all being mentioned. Though of course Black Heart Gold Pants has a medically informed theory:

The university’s release only noted that the players are “recovering,” while a staff physician was quoted as saying they are in “safe and stable condition” as of Tuesday. Some have speculated food poisoning could be the culprit, though the word on the street is that it’s not.

Last month Iowa football saw a player suspended for violating team rules, watched another player arrested on drug charges, and had to announce its drug testing program may have been compromised. All that plus losing three of their last four games have made for a hard winter in Iowa City.