Attorneys for former Cal U. football player, NCAA, square off in court
In a courtroom specially adapted to accommodate a motorized wheelchair, jurors assembled Friday morning in Washington County Court to begin hearing the case of a former California University of Pennsylvania linebacker who claims that repeated trauma during his college football career caused his neurological disease.
Matthew Onyshko, 38, whose career as a Pittsburgh firefighter ended several years ago because of his physical limitations, filed suit six years ago against the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which he said failed to warn him of the dangers of repeated blows to the head and spine.
Onyshko has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, abbreviated as ALS and often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
He watched from his wheelchair, his wife, Jessica, at his side, in stark contrast to video recordings of his days running plays, tackle after tackle in the early 2000s, shown to the jury as part of the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ opening arguments.
Not only did the jury of nine women and seven men hear a history of the NCAA, formed in 1906 because there were calls to eliminate football because it was too dangerous, but they had a crash course in cell biology and the structure of the body’s nervous system as presented by attorney Justin Shrader.
“What happened in this case should have never happened,” Houston, Texas, attorney Eugene Egdorf told the jurors in asking them to consider the conduct of the organization.
“If the NCAA shared what it knew with Matt Onyshko, we would not be here today.”
Onyshko, he said, had a scholarship to play college baseball, but he chose football as a walk-on from 1999 through 2003.
In early 2008, Onyshko noticed a weakness in his hand and he was eventually diagnosed with ALS. He did not connect his medical problems with football until, before the 2012 Super Bowl, he saw a story about New Orleans Saints safety Steve Gleason, who has the disease.
NCAA attorney Arthur W. Hankin of Philadelphia disputed a connection between Onyshko’s college football hits and ALS, calling the NCAA “a non-medical institution.”
“They have tried to make it out as an organization that doesn’t care,” he said of the plaintiffs. “Nothing could be further from the truth.
“I’m not saying Matt Onyshko never had a concussion. It is a fact Matt Onyshko was never diagnosed with a concussion. He never went to a doctor, trainer or a nurse. They want you to assume that merely because Matt Onyshko played football that he had a concussion.”
He asked the jurors to consider the science available while Onyshko was playing collegiate football, and read the opening sentence of a more recent medical journal that states the cause of ALS is unknown.
Hankin pointed out that not everyone who plays football gets ALS, but that people who never played football also get ALS.
Of the NCAA history that goes back to the early 20th century, Hankin asked, “So what?” and opined that what was relevant was what took place at Cal U. when Onyshko played there.
“We were getting out the best information we could based on the consensus opinion,” he said.
Testimony is scheduled to resume at 1:15 p.m. Monday before Judge Michael Lucas.