Seven Arizona State hockey players asked President Michael Crow to sideline coach Greg Powers after a preseason workout left teammate Matthew Mayich in a coma, disputing the school’s own review.
Arizona State University is investigating a grueling August 20 outdoor team workout that left sophomore hockey player Matthew Mayich incapacitated, on life support, and in a coma after he collapsed from exertional heat stroke.
Seven anonymous Sun Devils teammates have now sent a 26-page letter to ASU president Michael Crow seeking administrative leave for head coach Greg Powers and his staff. The players say the university’s initial review got the hydration timeline, monitoring failures, and emergency response wrong, and they fear retaliation if they keep quiet.
Fox News reported that the coaches remain in their jobs even as the program prepares to open its 2026, 27 season Friday against Lindenwood. Mayich, an Ontario native previously with the Ottawa 67’s and selected 170th overall by the St. Louis Blues in the 2023 NHL Draft, showed early signs of trouble that the letter says no one properly addressed.
The workout stretched about 75 minutes in Arizona’s triple-digit August heat and included bear crawls, buddy carries, and a medicine-ball task. Players described Mayich as someone who already spent most of his off time in an air-conditioned apartment because the heat was too much for him. Prior outdoor sessions, they said, usually lasted roughly 15 minutes before the team went back inside.
According to the letter, Mayich displayed distress well before he went down. He struggled during the bear crawl and could not complete the buddy carry. At a talk before the final event he was leaning on a teammate and having trouble standing, in front of the coaches, a trainer, and the ex-U.S. Army Green Beret running the session.
The players wrote that no one stepped in.
The letter states:
"Matthew showed signs of distress earlier, in the bear crawl and the buddy carry, well before the medicine ball task during which he collapsed. At the talk before the final event he was struggling to stand and leaning on a teammate, in front of Ziesel, the coaches, and the trainer. No one at ASU properly monitored him during the workout and no one intervened."
The New York Post reported that the session was led by ex-Green Beret Tim Ziesel at Sun Angel Stadium. Players claim Ziesel later admitted he forgot they needed a water break and remarked that he did not drink water during combat missions.
Hydration is the sharpest clash between the university’s review and the players’ account. ASU’s initial review placed a water break about 20 minutes into the workout. The players say the only break came roughly 40 minutes in, lasted a few seconds, and reached only about eight athletes before coaches ordered them back out.
The letter puts it plainly:
"The first of us to finish had a few seconds at the bottles before being ordered back while others, including Matthew, were still crawling. This was the only water break."
After Mayich collapsed, teammates say he remained in direct sunlight for several minutes before being carried into shade. Cooling measures were limited to towels, bottled water, and a garden hose. Breitbart noted that no cold-water immersion tub was available on the field despite university policy, and that Mayich was left with no chance of recovery.
Young athletes collapsing under extreme conditions is not abstract. A North Carolina middle school football player died three days after cardiac arrest at practice, another reminder that delayed response and ignored warning signs carry permanent costs.
The university’s own initial review found that Mayich did not receive proper hydration and received inadequate medical care after collapsing. Yet Powers and the assistant coaches who were on the field that morning have not been removed.
Players say Powers downplayed the emergency as a “little heat stroke” and claimed the team was “closer to making the Frozen Four because of the workout.” They also wrote that he never seemed to grasp how serious Mayich’s condition was.
The letter to Crow drives the point home:
"The head coach and his assistant coaches were all on the field on August 20, all remain in their positions, and together they decide our playing time, scholarship levels, and roster status. No one has separate us from them since that morning. We should not have to choose between telling the truth about August 20 and keeping what we have worked our whole lives for."
Powers was asked about the incident earlier this month and declined to speak, citing the “difficult time” it has been for the program. Family attorney Rob Carey has publicly pressed athletic officials for accountability. Crow has received the demand for administrative leave and an outside investigation; whether either request is granted remains unanswered.
Sudden, preventable losses keep landing on families who expected basic safety. Readers will recall the Massachusetts trooper killed by a wrong-way drunk driver after a bar served nine drinks, another case where systems failed ordinary people who deserved better oversight.
ASU launched a formal investigation after the collapse. The coaches who ran the session still control scholarships and playing time. Mayich remains the central human cost of a 75-minute outdoor grind in Arizona heat that players say ignored visible distress, delayed water, and offered only improvised cooling once he went down.
The letter asks for protection from retaliation, administrative leave for the staff, and investigators who do not answer to the same athletic department that conducted the first review. Those requests sit with Crow as the Sun Devils prepare to take the ice.
When a university’s own review already flags bad hydration and weak medical care, leaving the same staff in charge of the next workout is not leadership. It is a choice, and the players living with the consequences are done pretending otherwise.
