Was Ty Done Right By CU?

In a recent interview with ASUDevils.com, Ty Morrison - the former No. 1 JUCO player in the country and Bluejay tells a tale of being forced to play with a disease that wasn't caught til long after the affects of Graves Disease made playing basketball impossible. He also contends that he was forced to play basketball with a serious medical condition against doctor's advice. Morrison goes on the record for the first time in the article dated May 15th and raises some serious questions about the Bluejay coaching staff's handling of his situation. However, sources inside the Bluejay program are strongly contending that Ty Morrison isn't painting a proper picture of the situation that lead to him leaving the program after Christmas break last year.


The first issue brought up is - when was the Graves Disease first diagnosed? According to the article:

In September, after repeated complains to coaches and others at Creighton, Morrison said he was admitted to a local hospital, where he underwent a battery of tests.

"I had blood work done, they checked out my heart, and at the end of September they finally diagnosed me. I had it so long without being detected that I was in the last stages so I was having all the symptoms. I lost a lot of weight, had no energy, was always tired, had tremors, shaking, and couldn't think right.

According to sources close to the program, the actual time that Ty was brought to the hospital was in mid August when the Creighton doctors did the blood work and discovered the disease. He was then placed on medication that Morrison was told would take a month to take affect. Ty was then sent home over the Labor Day holiday, according to sources, for a 10 day period to rest and get his mind right as he battled the illness. When he came back, the CU doctors cleared him to play for the year and continued to closely watch his situation.

Again the time frame of how long Ty suffered is being disputed by sources close to situation as Ty told the website that he went a long time without being diagnosed. Sources acknowledge that he was sick but he didn't go as long as he claims without treatment:

"I went with the Graves Disease so long that it affected my heart so I had high blood pressure. My resting pulse was almost 200. So something major could have happened to me over the summer. I had to say it but I was literally facing death. I was working out of the summer and I was always throwing up, just sick as a dog. The doctors said, 'you could have easily passed out, had a heart attack, anything could have happened."

The major point of contention is did Coach Altman go against doctors orders and tell Ty that he had to play or he'd lose his scholarship? This fact is causing a lot of anger from inside the program because they dispute the following statement by Morrison:

"The doctors are like, 'you need to redshirt, no question about it. You need to redshirt and get healthy. There's no way you're going to be even 70 percent out there.' So I asked for a redshirt and the coaches were totally against it. They didn't want it at all. So that was the whole sad part about it. I felt like I was forced to play with it and also being threatened like, 'if you don't perform up to your ability, we're going to have to go elsewhere with [your scholarship] next year.'"

Again, according to sources, Ty NEVER asked to Redshirt and the coaches never threatened his scholarship. Instead, he told Steve Pivovar of the Omaha World Herald that he wanted to Redshirt after a bad practice one day out of the blue. The coaches then asked Ty about his public statement and he told them that he was just upset about what was happening to him.

Ty allegedly was tested every 2 weeks for his thyroid condition and the doctors never told Morrison that he should have been Redshirted. On my show, Coach Altman admitted that Morrison wasn't brought to CU to Redshirt - he was there to play and when the doctors said he was good to go - the team wanted Ty to work through his disease and have a great senior campaign.

Morrison disagrees with this:

"So when I got back to school after Christmas break, before the first practice, the coaching staff brought me into their office and they told me again, 'if you don't step it up, we're going to go elsewhere (with the scholarship),'" Morrison said. "I think they basically thought the whole time that I was making excuses, that [the condition] wasn't that serious, that it was the normal adjustment I was going through from junior college to Division I.

I got depressed. I think any other kid would get depressed. I was very sick and I myself wanted to redshirt and the doctors wanted me to redshirt. They wanted me to take the medicines, let the medicines get into my system and then I'd go at it hard the next year."

Again, the sources disagree with the tone of this conversation but they did confirm that the coaches wanted the meds to be allowed to take their affect. They wanted him on the court and they felt like he could have been affective after a few months on the medication. However, there were rumors that Morrison was emotionally unstable and possibly even a danger to himself which caused him to be sent home to Phoenix to be with his family.

It's a nasty He Said He Said fight right now but CU hasn't commented publicly about the Morrison article. I feel like they will be forced to in the near future.

Morrison ended the article with the statement:

"I've always said I'm not going to bash the Creighton coaching staff and that's not my intent. Nothing against the Creighton situation or their coaches, but I use that as motivation. This is the first time I've gotten the truth off my chest -- the way I feel about what happened. And you know what they say, the truth sets you free."

I'll guess we'll wait and see if he says the same thing tomorrow on the show if can run him down.