Before I ask this question I am completely in the dark here as I have not read enough about this in detail:
Why was the supposed toxic climate at Maryland not known until this unfortunate tragedy. Because to me the two things are completely different from what the little I have followed.
The student athletes death seems to be a result of a strength coach going beyond the fine line of being tough and being flat out insane on a workout that should have never taken place in that kind of heat and the lack of medical staff and response. The buck does stop with the head coach as he is the CEO of the program but I just cannot grasp how he is taking so much back blame now when there was no line of complaints prior. Especially when coaches are coming into a program those recruited by the former staff are quick to spout off when a staff is trying to run them out.
In this day and age players will revolt and with social media nothing is off the record. The days of what goes on here stays here does not exist. Here is a young head coach who by all media accounts prior to this series of events was very transparent, enthusiastic, and highly thought of. The whole thing is a mess.
Coaches do exert considerable control over the lives of their student athletes; yes, there's significant differences in the modern day like smartphones/technology that captures everything and allows people to communicate to people outside easily.
But reality is there's still pressure to conform/peer pressure and the like that prevent the real story from getting out before a big incident like a student athlete's death. A lot of people looked the other way; the same way hazing gets out of control (as we've experienced at NU).
It is worth noting that there was one red flag raised in 2016, somebody on the team (or associated with a player) anonymously sent President Loh an email alleging that the football coaches were abusing the players psychologically and physically.
So Loh isn't necessarily blameless here if he just ignored that anonymous email. An anonymous email like that could just be a disgruntled player but it could also be something legitimate, he might've been able to do more then to solve this.
The allegations do sort of seem so bizarre that somebody should have spoken out sooner: From TheRinger: 'One member of the football team described being forced to overeat to the point of vomiting as a coach who had told him to gain weight sat with him; others spoke of being forced during team meetings to watch videos of “serial killers, drills entering eyeballs, and bloody scenes with animals eating animals.” One coach, Rick Court, was known to direct antigay slurs at athletes and throw weights, food, and, once, a trash can full of vomit at them.'
The fact that nobody was speaking out about these things, even anonymously, until the big ESPN "toxic football culture at Maryland" stories broke is a part of the problem. Just seems like there's so much pressure and control that people don't really think for themselves in situations like this. I can understand too because when you're in your late teens/early 20s, you view your coaches as father figures given it's the first time you're away from home. I get why there was hesitance to speak out earlier when you sort of treat coaches as your parent figures while at college.