Reports of Jamain Stephens death due to COVID apparently premature
I am not calling it false at this point but reports of former University of California (Pennsylvania) football player Jamain Stephens dying of COVID may be unsubstantiated.
Apparently, everyone (Bret McMurphy) ran with reports from a Facebook post from his old high school that was based on rumor and has not been confirmed.
Stephens was apparently not an active member of the University of California (Pennsylvania) football team for some time, (pre-COVID) because of other health issues. He told someone that he had tested positive for COVID at some point but it is not clear if he was even symptomatic.
Basically, people on Facebook made several assumptions and the media did what they do and ran with those assumptions.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/california-university-o…
September 9th, 2020 at 8:25 PM ^
Tragic regardless of circumstances
But jumping to conclusions before we have all the facts is also so cliche for 2020
September 9th, 2020 at 8:28 PM ^
I know everyone needs to stop jumping to conclusions it is so 2019.
September 9th, 2020 at 8:35 PM ^
Have you guys ever heard of my great idea? A jump to conclusions mat. It’s a mat with different conclusions. And you jump and see what conclusion one lands upon. Million dollar idea.
September 9th, 2020 at 8:38 PM ^
‘Peter, good things do happen in this world... Look at me!’
September 9th, 2020 at 8:39 PM ^
Well-well look. I already told you, I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills... I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
September 10th, 2020 at 11:51 AM ^
Much like the infamous "8 Ball" back in the day. Brilliant!
September 9th, 2020 at 8:36 PM ^
McMurphy comes across as a bit of an idiot if I'm being honest.
September 9th, 2020 at 8:51 PM ^
Next we will find out yes, it was COVID related.
Then we will find out he was actually suffering from something else, but he had COVID.
Then one side will claim a conspiracy.
Then we will hear again that yes, he died from COVID.
Then nobody will know what to believe.
Then this same process will repeat with another news story.
September 9th, 2020 at 8:57 PM ^
Probably...
September 9th, 2020 at 9:44 PM ^
Cause of death? Covid-19 adjacent...
September 9th, 2020 at 9:04 PM ^
Christ. Journalism via social media is never a good thing.
September 9th, 2020 at 9:07 PM ^
Hey! (true)
September 9th, 2020 at 10:23 PM ^
Journalism....you would have thought the information age would have made the truth so much more available. Now it seems like it gets lost in the noise.
I’d like to think it ultimately is there if people have the attention span to search.
September 10th, 2020 at 8:23 AM ^
Someone in another forum claimed that if five people with cellphone cameras report the same thing, that verifies the incident. So yeah for crowdsourced journalism. Ethics and training can go take a hike.
September 9th, 2020 at 9:07 PM ^
A 20 year old college student died and it had nothing to do with football. Making this news fit your narrative is vile, but that's what you've been doing all along.
Cmon Mods.
September 9th, 2020 at 9:49 PM ^
Speaking of fitting your narrative, did you complain when this was falsely reported in a previous post?
I swear you spend all of your time trying to police this board for anything that doesn't fit your chosen belief system.
Maybe you should try to learn how to self soothe so you don't get so upset when evidence is present that something you believe just might be wrong.
September 9th, 2020 at 9:58 PM ^
Who were you prior to 09/02/2020?
September 9th, 2020 at 9:27 PM ^
Color me shocked.
September 9th, 2020 at 11:04 PM ^
He was in the hospital and had covid, no surprise his coach put two and two together.
September 9th, 2020 at 9:31 PM ^
At this point nobody should be surprised.
September 9th, 2020 at 9:47 PM ^
Probably a better topic to add to the board would be the segregated virtual cafes at UM Dearborn.
September 9th, 2020 at 9:52 PM ^
oh really, who would have guessed !!!
September 9th, 2020 at 9:57 PM ^
We'll see. It seems he tested positive a week earlier (according to himself) and was in the hospital (according to his high school coach), but maybe it was something else. It isn't clear when he was in the hospital.
September 9th, 2020 at 10:11 PM ^
Sports media was super defensive and wondered why they were being partially blamed for football cancellations. This adds more fuel to that fire
September 9th, 2020 at 10:31 PM ^
When you're 355 pounds you can go at any time even just walking up the stairs.
Regardless of cause of death it's a tragedy anytime someone that young dies.
September 9th, 2020 at 11:32 PM ^
Fuck death.
September 9th, 2020 at 10:32 PM ^
I'm sure we'll learn more in the coming days and weeks. I'm sure it'll ultimately be some combination of "he had some underlying condition that was exasperated by COVID-19" or similar so that everyone can claim a piece of rhetorical victory.
September 9th, 2020 at 11:02 PM ^
Pretty much every lineman that's not super trim has, by definition, a pre-existing condition.
September 9th, 2020 at 11:50 PM ^
The "by definition" part is the issue, I think, in a lot of these cases. Most linemen are by BMI standards obese but they're also quite young, so many of the dangers associated with obesity haven't necessarily had a chance to manifest.
I'd also point out that if we do accept that linemen have a preexisting condition then we're talking about a quarter of a football team's roster most years; Michigan has 38 defensive and offensive linemen listed on their roster this year. So if the talking point is that people with pre-existing conditions should stay away from dangerous situations we might as well just play, I don't know, backyard football with only receivers and corners.
September 9th, 2020 at 11:57 PM ^
I'm not arguing they should play, not at all. But lineman are probably more at risk than their teammates.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:46 AM ^
This guy was especially obese. 355 is HUGE already and this was not a muscular 355 if you've seen him (not like Mike Onwenu). Plus, that was his playing weight and he hasn't played or even been on campus since March. Probably ballooned to close to 400 lbs during quarantine. This was not a typical lineman.
September 10th, 2020 at 11:07 AM ^
I mean, college football is full of guys this size. Yes, at the upper levels of CFB you typically have guys in slightly better shape at that size, but guys with his dimensions are not unicorns. Furthermore, virtually all of the guys on the line are still classically massively overweight/obese with respect to BMI. Again, my point is simply that if we want to carve out various exceptions to act like this isn't a danger so be it, but most people wouldn't think being 6'3" 315 lbs is in a profoundly different risk category than 6' 3", 355lbs.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:38 PM ^
It's not full of guys his size. Guys that are over 350 are very rare, in fact. When they show up on campus like that they're made to lose a lot of weight. And there is a pretty big difference between 315 at 355 in terms of health.
I'm not acting like it's not a danger. I've said multiple times here that football linemen are the athletes most at risk (and it's not a surprise the IU kid that went to the ER was a linemen). Still a small risk, but much greater than guys half their size. This kid was at significantly greater risk than the typical lineman is all I'm saying.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:32 AM ^
There have also been studies coming out that show people with higher %'s of fat are having worse responses to Covid. Something about the virus easily attaching to fat cells so the more fat cells the more the virus seems to spread and the less your body seems to be able to fight it off. This is regardless of whether a person has other health issues or not.
This story is a perfect example of the media's need to be first, not accurate. Like other posts have said, the truth on this will be somewhere in the middle. Who knows if we will ever find out.
September 10th, 2020 at 4:36 PM ^
Except we aren’t seeing large amount of deaths of obese people. It is mostly old people. Age is by far the main determinant of lethality of Covid.
The fixation with obesity seems odd when the statistics shows that the vast majority of deaths are 55 or older. It is particularly high for people 65 or older.
September 10th, 2020 at 1:50 AM ^
As someone who has worked in the media for a long time I agree. Media speculation and jumping the gun on stories like these is an epidemic.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:58 AM ^
Just like 99% of the so called covid deaths. RIP Jamain.
September 10th, 2020 at 8:43 AM ^
I'm not going to comment on the validity of the kid having COVID or not, or if that was the cause. A kid died, it's terrible.
But I will ask this question: When are people going to stop listening to Brett McMurphy? The dude has blown just about everything he has been involved in over the past few years (and no I'm not just talking about the OSU stuff).
He is an opinion writer trying to write his opinion as fact. He does not vet his sources, he doesn't even dig to get multiple sources. He talks to one person and runs with it and puts an editorial out and people that like his opinion pass it off as fact. This dude needs run out of the industry.
September 10th, 2020 at 12:31 PM ^
I'm sorry, didn't he just report what the school said?
September 10th, 2020 at 3:07 PM ^
See, that is the problem. He reported a Facebook post from someone who clearly didn't have firsthand information.
The intent of the post was to point out what a fuck-mess the media is and what crap passes as journalism these days.
If you want to be paid as a journalist/reporter, you need to do the work.
September 10th, 2020 at 7:40 PM ^
I'm fairly certain the school issued a statement that he died from Covid. They certainly retracted one. so it stands to reason they also issued one.
September 10th, 2020 at 10:44 AM ^
unsubstantiated reports, from anonymous sources have claimed that Covid-19 MAY have been a contributing factor to many deaths this year
September 10th, 2020 at 11:35 AM ^
What a shock.
September 10th, 2020 at 3:32 PM ^
Imagine that.
September 11th, 2020 at 9:08 AM ^
Nothing shocks me anymore.The fact that DTDS justifies hurting average americans to make political gains.Science needs the truth to fight this virus.Partisan politics is killing the working class. I guess the 2016 election wasn't loud enough so 2020 is going to be louder, as far as I can tell in my world those polls are off by 20% minimum. And I wouldn't be shocked if they ignore the results once again and we go 4 more years like the last 3.5 years except for the fact they further marginalize themselves by losing seats to be totally in the minority?
Do y'all think another loss will finally wake them up?