http://www.al.com/auburnfootball/mobileregister/index.ssf?/base/sports/123184172928340.xml&coll=3Auburn's Chaz Ramsey uncertain about future in football
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
By EVAN WOODBERY
Sports Reporter
AUBURN — The dedication Chaz Ramsey felt to his school and his team is etched upon his back.
Ramsey has a tattoo of the Auburn logo, with wings on either side.
Later, the hulking offensive lineman from Madison, Miss., added the words "Tough times never last. Tough people do."
When he sees the tattoo now, it's hard for Ramsey not to wonder how things went so horribly wrong. After a spectacular freshman season in 2007, Ramsey suffered a serious back injury. Ramsey and his father allege that the subsequent rehabilitation was mishandled by Auburn's training staff. Last August, as the dispute between the training staff and the Ramsey family raged, Ramsey's locker was cleaned out and teammates were told not to associate with him.
Today, still enrolled at Auburn, Ramsey wonders whether he'll play college football again — at Auburn or anywhere else.
"Going to college, I had my hopes up high," he said. "I played as a freshman. But when I got injured, things just went downhill from there. It was bad luck the way things played out. They treated it as a business, I guess you could say. When people get hurt, they move on. They've got their own jobs to think about."
His father, Key, is less diplomatic.
"They use you and abuse you and throw you away," he said.
A great start The marriage between Ramsey and the Auburn football program started happily enough. He arrived at Auburn in the summer of 2007 as a well-recruited lineman from Madison Central High in suburban Jackson. He seemed to hit it off with his teammates and had a solid camp in two-a-days.
When Auburn struggled early in the 2007 season, then-line coach Hugh Nall made a bold move, taking the redshirts off Ramsey and Ryan Pugh, and putting them in the lineup with fellow true freshman Lee Ziemba. The trio of young linemen excelled, helping to spark a season-changing upset at Florida.
"We got baptisms by fire, so to speak, and we held our own," Ramsey said.
After the season is when the trouble began. Ramsey injured his back while lifting weights on Dec. 12. He made it through the Chick-fil-A bowl with the help of pain medication, but by the time spring practice began in 2008, the discomfort was unbearable.
Ramsey went to a surgeon recommended by Auburn and was diagnosed with two herniated discs, one of which was pressing against the sciatic nerve, the longest and widest single nerve in the body. Wanting to return to football as quickly as possible, Ramsey went ahead with surgery.
The rehab program that followed was the source of what quickly became a bitter dispute between the Ramseys and Auburn's training staff.
Ramsey said he returned to Auburn in late May, about six weeks after his surgery, with his back feeling great. But an aggressive treatment program initiated by Auburn's training staff not only conflicted with the specific plan laid out by the surgeon, but actually made things worse, Ramsey said. Two months after the surgery, his back was back to "square one."
The conflict only escalated. Ramsey accused head trainer Arnold Gamber of calling him "less than a man" and suggesting that he use pain medicine for the rest of his Auburn career. The Ramseys say that Auburn team physician Dr. Michael Goodlett was horrified that the rehab directives were not being followed, and told Ramsey to report directly to him, not the training staff.
(Auburn did not make Gamber or Goodlett available for interviews, citing medical confidentiality laws. But the university did issue a statement from executive associate athletic director Tim Jackson saying the following: "Auburn Athletics holds all of our student-athletes, regardless of the sport they participate in, to very high standards. Each student-athlete's situation is unique and due to privacy laws and out of respect for those individuals, we will not discuss the details of any student-athlete's circumstances. Both coaches and administrators expect that our student-athletes will conduct themselves in the highest regard, academically, athletically and socially. Additionally, we hold our staff to equally high standards in the support and care that they provide for our student-athletes.")
Disciplinary action taken In the midst of the dispute, something else happened that Ramsey believes was related.
When he arrived at Auburn's athletic complex one day just before the start of the 2008 season, he found his locker cleaned out and personal belongings set aside on a table. Ramsey left the complex feeling humiliated.
But Nall said the move had nothing to do with Ramsey's ongoing dispute with the training staff. Instead, Nall said Ramsey was effectively "suspended from the offensive line" for missing meetings and treatment sessions.
Nall said there was no other disciplinary avenue to pursue, since he couldn't make Ramsey run or do extra workouts, nor could he fine him as he might in a professional league.
"That left me no choice," said Nall, who has left the coaching business and is now an executive with a trucking firm in Albany, Ga. "I was hoping to let him know how serious I was. At that point in time, I was still under the impression he might be cleared to play (in 2008) and he needed to be up on all the blocking schemes.
"Then his dad called me and said he was going to transfer. I didn't want that to happen. I was just trying to get his attention. ... There was never retaliation for anything."
Ramsey said he missed two summer offensive line meetings because of a change in his medication that left him at home, "passed out." He also disputes that he missed any treatment sessions. He said Goodlett told him he could arrive to complete his one-hour therapy any time between the allotted 6:30-9:30 a.m. slot, which he did every time.
In any case, Nall said Ramsey never spoke to head coach Tommy Tuberville or himself about getting the suspension lifted. Had Ramsey apologized, taken responsibility or explained the situation to everyone's satisfaction, "that would have been that," and he could have rejoined the team.
But the Ramseys believed that bridges had been burned beyond repair and that the coaching staff was now clearly siding with the training staff in the dispute.
In a letter written to an Auburn appeal board, Ramsey said he believed his only option was to leave the team.
"It has become obvious to me that I will either be part of Auburn's therapy program (against surgeon recommendations) or be run off this team through humiliation," he said.
At this point, Ramsey said, all he wanted was for his "back to mend itself, to rid myself of the pain, and hopefully live a normal life."
Auburn granted Ramsey a release to transfer anywhere except other SEC schools. With two SEC schools in his home state, Ramsey was disappointed by the decision and pursued the appeals process, even drafting a 1,800-word letter describing his grievances with Auburn in detail. Auburn quickly backed down and allowed a transfer to Ole Miss or Mississippi State, and the appeal was never heard.
But the elder Ramsey said he believes Auburn's training and strength staff bad-mouthed his son in conversations with their colleagues at those two schools and elsewhere — an allegation that Auburn vigorously denied. Ramsey got some walk-on offers, but no schools offered a scholarship.
A future at Auburn? So what does Ramsey's future hold?
He has an appointment with his surgeon in one week to see if he will be medically cleared to play football again.
Far-fetched as it might sound, Ramsey hasn't ruled out returning to the field for Auburn. Ramsey bumped into Gene Chizik and exchanged introductions recently at a local sandwich shop. He has an appointment later this week to meet with offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn. Still, given the raw wounds still unhealed from the dispute, his return seems unlikely.
Ramsey is enrolled in classes this semester, and says he wouldn't mind remaining on campus as a regular student. And if he's approached by another school and feels comfortable with their coaching staff, he would be open to discussing a transfer.
For now, he's concentrating on life as a student. And if football is in his future, he wants his career to have a happier ending.
"I'd like to stay here and get my degree," he said. "Football is fun. God gave me the talent to play it. But if it doesn't work out, I can move on with life, get a degree, get a regular job and have a family."
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