Brad Bohannon and Two Other Alabama Baseball Coaches Sued By Former Player

Bohannon and two other staff members are in a lawsuit with former player Blake Bennett for “refusing medical care to a severely injured player.”

© Gary Cosby Jr. via Imagn Content Services, LLC

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama Baseball head coach Brad Bohannon, pitching coach Jason Jackson and athletic trainer Sean Stryker are being sued by former left-handed pitcher Blake Bennett and his father, Jon, for “refusing medical care to a severely injured player."

A hearing has been scheduled for next week in Tuscaloosa. The University has not been named in the lawsuit.

Per the court filing:

Bennett joined the Crimson Tide in June 2019 from Haleyville High School in Haleyville, Ala. He began gaining interest from schools during his freshman year — the first to call being Alabama. By the end of his sophomore year, Bennett had offers from Auburn, Liberty, UAB and Samford as well.

He committed to The University of Alabama during that year. Before his senior year, Bennett was contacted by MLB scouts — the Los Angeles Angels, Houston Astros and Cleveland Indians all sent scouts to watch Bennett play during his senior year. During that season, he suffered a mild injury to his pitching arm that didn’t require surgery. Despite fully recovering, Bennett’s draft stock went down some and he decided he wanted to go and play for the Crimson Tide instead of entering the draft.

Jackson, Alabama's pitching coach, reached out to Bennett and told him “not to pick up a baseball again until he arrived on campus.” On his first day as a part of the team, Bennett underwent a “complete and thorough pre-participation medical screening” and was deemed healthy.

Not long into strength training, Bennett unknowingly suffered a broken rib. He claimed that's when he started to pick up symptoms of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS) — something he had not previously felt prior to his arrival in Tuscaloosa.

TOS is “a disorder that occurs when blood vessels or nerves in the space between the collarbone and first rib are compressed.” It can be a fairly common condition for baseball pitchers due to the “extraordinary and extreme stretching motion of the arm while pitching.” It causes numbness in the arm and hand while throwing. Once finished, the numbness is gone.

In July 2019, Bennett began feeling the numbness when throwing from a long distance. He had “almost no control over his throws, resulting in wild throws into the dirt or over the head of the player with whom he is throwing.”

Bennett immediately reported the problem to Jackson, who allegedly told Bennett to take the rest of the day off and try again the next day. Over the following days and weeks, Jackson and Bennett threw privately “to avoid the other players from seeing Blake’s lack of control.” Stryker, the athletic trainer, was with Jackson watching Bennett throw.

The lawsuit claims Stryker told Bennett he had “the yips” and that he needed to just regain control of his release point.

Bennett told Stryker that it wasn’t “the yips” and that he believed something was physically wrong with his arm. NCAA and UA policy state that when an injury is reported by an athlete, the staff has “a responsibility to immediately have the student-athlete evaluated by qualified medical staff.”

Bennett claimed this didn't happen.

He continued to feel the numbness and as a result, continued to struggle with his control. Jackson and Stryker, and now Bohannon, continued to tell him he had “the yips.”

Stryker performed “various painful stretching maneuvers, massages and other modalities to ‘rehab’ and ‘relax’ Blake’s arm and shoulder, to no avail.”

Several months later, Bennett asked Jackson if he should inform his family of his pain — Jackson said no.

In the meantime, Bennett continued to throw through July, August and September away from the rest of the team and grew distant from the other players.

He eventually went to Dr. Brett McCabe, the team’s psychologist. McCabe determined Bennett’s problem was “not psychological.”

On November 7, 2019, Bohannon called Bennett’s father and told him that his son “has ‘the yips’ and we have no idea what to do to get him back pitching.” Bohannon invited him to come and watch his son throw.

After watching, Bennett’s father also believed something was wrong with his son. On Nov. 11, 2019, Bennett was examined by team physician, Dr. Jeff Laubenthal, who stated that he indeed believed Bennett had TOS.

Bennett claimed that when he arrived for the second semester in January 2020, Jackson told him that he should consider leaving Alabama and going to a junior college.

In front of Bohannon, Jackson and Stryker, Bennett threw a bullpen outing. Bohannon said to him and the two others, “That is the worst f—g bullpen I have ever seen in my life.”

On Feb. 7, 2020, Bennett was diagnosed with TOS by Dr. David Whitley at the Vascular Institute of Birmingham.

The college baseball season ended abruptly in 2020 due to COVID-19 — and Bennett underwent surgery. On May 7, 2020, Bohannon told Bennett that he would not be on scholarship the following season, saying, “No hard feelings, it’s just that every time I would see you pitch, I would have flashbacks of last year and it would be too hard to put you in a game.”

Bennett recovered and entered the transfer portal, transferring to Pensacola State Community College in 2021. He claimed that despite the surgery going well, he was filled with an “intense, stressful fear of failure and anxiety” each time he pitched.

In 2022, Bennett transferred again, this time to Jacksonville State. He was dismissed from the team on May 12, 2022 — just two days after Jacksonville State and Alabama played each other.

Bennett didn’t receive an explanation on why he was removed from the team.

Attorneys for Bohannon, Jackson and Stryker filed a motion in March to have the lawsuit thrown out. All three are legally state employees — meaning they are immune from lawsuits.

The suit is for "compensatory and punitive damages and the costs of this action in excess of the minimum jurisdictional limits of this court as determined by the jury."

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