The language is the story. When Arizona State athletic director Graham Rossini went on Arizona Sports radio and drew what he called “a really, really important distinction” between a review and an investigation, he told you exactly how the university intends to handle Matthew Mayich’s collapse. A 21-year-old defenseman is hospitalized in critical condition after an outdoor workout on the first legal day of fall practice. The school’s public posture is that nobody is suggesting anything went wrong.
I keep coming back to that framing. Rob Carey, the former Arizona deputy chief attorney general now representing Mayich’s family, heard it the same way I did. “It’s very clear to me that this is a time when adults have to do the right thing — sometimes the right thing is the hard thing — and from everything I can tell and the leads we have, ASU is not handling this responsibly,” Carey told The Athletic. He added that the university “seems to be circling the wagons.”
Mayich collapsed Aug. 20 at Sun Angel Stadium during a session led in part by Tim Ziesel, a 39-year-old former military service member and non-university employee. Tempe Fire Medical Rescue responded around 8:30 a.m. to a report of heat-related illness. Conditions that morning sat in the mid-to-upper 80s with humidity near 50 percent and no wind, under an extreme heat warning that would push the high to 106. The National Weather Service guidance based on those morning readings called for 15 minutes of break every hour of exercise. Multiple people briefed on the workout described roughly 60 minutes of sprints, planks, push-ups, and bear crawls with counting and instruction-repetition requirements, plus extras for anyone who lagged. Ziesel’s attorney, Buddy Rake, has pushed a different picture, saying Ziesel’s portion ran 45-50 minutes and that “there isn’t a D1 athlete on the planet that would describe this as a hard day of exercising.”
Carey called those softer characterizations “fictional” and part of a “false narrative.” “I’ve already gotten information on what happened that day, and I’m very confident it was a grueling, onerous and dangerous workout,” he said. His firm intends to pursue communications, texts, and videos, including any that were deleted. That is not theater. That is discovery posture from a lawyer who already helped win the O’Bannon-era NIL fight.
Calling It a Review Is the Whole Strategy
Rossini’s radio distinction is load-bearing. “This is not an investigation where someone is suggesting something went wrong. We’re just reviewing the facts and understanding the scenario.” Senior vice president James Rund is leading it. Media relations has pointed to heat-illness guidelines informed by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association and rules for outside entities who interact with athletes, then declined most operational questions: who authorized Ziesel, who was present, what the medical coverage looked like in real time.
I have covered enough of these institutional reviews to know the mechanism. A review collects information the school already controls. An investigation creates an independent record, preserves evidence, and usually separates potential witnesses from the people who supervised them. Carey said putting coaches and staff on administrative leave is routine procedure precisely to create that separation. ASU has not done it. The difference is not semantic. It is structural. One path protects the chain of command. The other tests it.
Mayich arrived at ASU as a transfer from Clarkson, where he posted 15 points and led freshmen in ice time at nearly 20 minutes a night across 34 games. Before that he spent four OHL seasons with the Ottawa 67’s, 99 points in 256 games, alternate captain the last two years. St. Louis took him 170th overall in 2023. He never signed an entry-level deal. The hockey path was still open. The family is now dealing with critical-care updates and a university that will not call what happened an investigation.
The Gap Between Narratives Is the Evidence Trail
Rake has said coaches and medical staff were present, that Ziesel left before the final medicine-ball work, and that the collapse came roughly 20 minutes after Ziesel wrapped. Sources who spoke to The Athletic described an instructor who left before the last activity finished and a session that punished missed counts and lagging groups. Those accounts do not have to be reconciled in a column. They have to be reconciled under oath or in a real fact-finding process with subpoena power and witness insulation. Carey’s firm is built for that. ASU’s current posture is not.
Chris Fiscus, ASU’s vice president of media relations, confirmed the existence of heat and outside-entity guidelines and stopped there. No public timeline on when the review ends. No administrative leave. No detailed accounting of who signed off on a non-employee running a first-day outdoor session in August heat on a track. The Blues, the OHL, and people close to the family have offered support and prayers. About 160 people showed up at one service. That is the human side. The institutional side is still choosing its verbs carefully.
Carey put the stakes without decoration: “A kid’s life was basically ruined, the family is devastated, and people refuse to accept responsibility.” I do not know what the full medical picture will show. Cardiac event, heat illness, some combination, something else. That belongs to the doctors and, eventually, to whatever record gets built. What I do know is the process choice already on the table. ASU is reviewing. The family, through counsel who has beaten the NCAA before, is preparing to investigate. Those are not parallel tracks. One is designed to learn. The other is designed to assign.
Matthew Mayich remains hospitalized in critical condition. The review continues without staff separation. The language Rossini chose on the radio is still doing the work the school needs it to do.
