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Bucknell University has told the parents of a freshman football player who died in July that it is investigating his death, but the player’s parents say they are unsatisfied with the school’s response because Bucknell has not provided any details about the circumstances leading to their son’s death.

Calvin “C.J.” Dickey Jr., an 18-year-old freshman, died July 12, two days after collapsing at his first workout with the Bisons. Emergency doctors told Dickey’s parents that he collapsed from sickle cell-related rhabdomyolysis, a medical condition that experts told ESPN is easily prevented, and even reversed, by simply stopping exercise. Dickey’s parents said their son had previously tested positive for sickle cell trait as part of NCAA-required testing for athletes. They said the team’s head trainer knew about the results of the test before Dickey arrived at Bucknell.

Individuals with sickle cell trait are at a higher risk of a life-threatening condition if they begin to feel fatigued and do not stop exercising. The NCAA’s online “fact sheet” for coaches says that “knowledge of sickle cell trait status can be a gateway to education and simple precautions that may prevent collapse among athletes with sickle cell trait, allowing them to thrive in sport.”

It is unclear what protocols Bucknell had in place to monitor Dickey’s condition during his first workout. Dickey, while in the hospital after collapsing, told his parents he had been doing repeated up-downs, a training exercise in which players quickly drop into a pushup position before jumping into a squat and then standing position.

Bucknell declined to answer a detailed list of questions from ESPN or to make Bucknell’s football coach and head athletic trainer available for an interview. In a statement to ESPN, a spokesperson for the school said, “We offer our deepest condolences to the Dickey family, and are not able to comment further at this time.”

“I want [Bucknell] to own this, to take accountability,” his mother, Nicole Dickey, told ESPN. “Nothing is going to bring our child back. I want the truth.”

Dickey’s parents want a review of any video recordings of the workout session and other events preceding his collapse, as well as interviews with athletes and staff. In a letter to the family’s attorney, reviewed by ESPN, Bucknell said it was investigating Dickey’s death.

“The parents are devastated, obviously,” said family attorney Mike Caspino. “But their devastation is compounded by the fact that Bucknell is not being transparent. Despite repeated requests for information, they have denied these requests. They have repeatedly told us that their investigation is ongoing, and they can’t provide us with any details.”

The family is trying to piece together what happened to their son based on documents and comments he and his doctors made before he died.


Dickey’s parents said their son never experienced any issues with exhaustion while practicing or playing football and baseball for Carrollwood Day School in Tampa, Florida — even when playing both offensive and defensive line in 100-degree weather his senior year.

“He was probably the hardest-working kid I have ever been around,” said Raymond McNeil, one of Carrollwood’s football coaches. “He played through injuries. He played through everything. This is a kid that’s literally playing 100 to 110 plays a game on both sides of the ball.”

When it came time for college, Dickey chose to play football at Bucknell because “he felt like they wanted him,” Nicole said.

His mother said the family never tested Dickey for sickle cell trait until the NCAA required it and that she wasn’t surprised when the test showed he had the trait because she has it as well.

She said she sent documentation to Bucknell confirming the results of Dickey’s test. Nicole said she spoke to head football athletic trainer Kaiti Hager approximately two weeks before Dickey arrived on campus. Hager confirmed on that call that they knew Dickey had sickle cell trait, Nicole said.

Dickey’s father, Calvin Sr., dropped off his son for his first day of minicamp at Bucknell on July 10 at roughly 10:45 a.m. Nicole has a copy of the agenda for the day, which indicates their son and other incoming freshmen were scheduled to have a “med check” at noon. The Dickeys do not know what occurred during those meetings or even if those meetings actually happened.

The agenda also shows “offensive lifting” at 1 p.m. in the weight room followed by 2:15 p.m. “defensive lifting” and “first year/transfer lifting” at 3:30 p.m.

At 3:29 p.m., Nicole received a phone call from her normally laid-back son.

“He was very agitated,” she said. “He was extremely upset.”

Dickey told his mother that he and nine other players had not been “cleared to do workouts or to start training today,” she said.

Dickey’s parents said they were struck by how agitated their son was and are still unclear about why he was so uncharacteristically upset. She said she attempted to calm him down, telling him, “If you don’t work out today, it’s OK. You’ve got the rest of the summer.”

Ten minutes later, Dickey called his mother back and said, “The coaches said it was something they did not do, but we’re cleared, and I’m going to work out,” according to Nicole.

Then, at 5:16 p.m., Nicole received a call from Hager saying she was at the emergency room with Dickey and that he collapsed at practice and “has passed out.”

The Dickeys drove as quickly as they could to the community hospital where Hager met them at roughly 5:45 p.m. The athletic trainer told them their son had been in an air-conditioned building when he passed out and that “someone had to get her” because she wasn’t in the room when he collapsed, Calvin Sr. said. It’s unclear if Dickey was working out in the air-conditioned building or elsewhere.

“She said when she found him, he was out of it and he was kind of clammy. She said his heart rhythm was off, or he had an abnormal heart rhythm or something of that nature. And she said she also had to shock him,” Calvin Sr. said. “She didn’t say if it was successful or not.”

Calvin Sr. said he interpreted the trainer’s words to mean Hager tried to use an automated external defibrillator even though their son had a discernible heartbeat. Hager did not respond to ESPN’s request for comment.

When Dickey’s parents saw their son at about 6 p.m., he had regained consciousness but had low blood pressure and a high heart rate, was breathing heavily and was asking repeatedly for water.

When Nicole asked her son what had happened, Dickey responded, “They had us doing up-downs” and that “some of the kids were not getting it right, so they had us repeat doing them.”

The Dickeys said an emergency room doctor handed them a printout about sickle cell-induced rhabdomyolysis before telling them their son was at risk of kidney and liver damage and needed to be transported to Geisinger Medical Center, a Level I trauma center in Danville, Pennsylvania.

Rhabdomyolysis is the medical terminology for when muscle breaks down and dies. When someone with sickle cell trait doesn’t stop exercising, their blood cells can begin to “sickle,” or turn into a moon shape, said Dr. Kimberly Harmon, the head football physician at the University of Washington who has published multiple research papers on sudden death associated with sickle cell trait.

These moon-shaped cells “get stuck in the very, very tiny little blood vessels, called the capillaries, in the muscles and create a log jam or a dam to the muscles,” Harmon said. “The muscles can’t get oxygen because these moon-shaped blood cells are blocking the blood supply and the muscle dies.”

As a result, she said, the muscles release toxins and other contents that cause cardiac arrhythmias, kidney damage and organ failure, all of which can lead to death.

The key to avoiding rhabdomyolysis, Harmon said, is for someone to immediately stop exercising as soon as they begin to feel fatigued. Athletes with sickle cell trait report experiencing cramping, most often in the legs and back. These “cramps,” Harmon said, can feel different and are flaccid to the touch, while normal cramping often causes a muscle to become hard.

Harmon said there is a significant difference between sickle cell trait and sickle cell disease, which would prevent people from playing sports. She and other experts note a number of collegiate players with sickle cell trait have gone on to have successful careers in the NFL.

Dickey arrived at the trauma hospital at around 10 p.m. the same day he collapsed and was later put on dialysis, according to his parents.

Two days later, on July 12, according to his parents, his weight had ballooned from 290 pounds to more than 315 pounds, and he was rushed into emergency surgery to slice open both of his calves and one of his forearms to relieve pressure building in his extremities.

“He was starting to lose feeling in his fingers and toes and feet, and his arms were swelling,” Calvin Sr. said. “The analogy they used was like sausages, when they get hot and they split. They had to do that in order to release the pressure from his arms.”

His parents said Dickey’s heart stopped beating during surgery and that doctors were able to resuscitate him before returning him to his room. But after surgery, Dickey’s heart stopped at least four more times, and his parents watched as doctors used CPR and an AED to try to resuscitate him.

“They shocked him, two, maybe three times. It lifts him off the bed. It was so violent,” Calvin Sr. said. “You can see, like, his whole body lifting up, and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what is this?'”

The last time Dickey’s heart stopped, Nicole said the doctors attempted to bring him back for 20 minutes before she and Calvin Sr. told them to stop.

“It was the toughest decision I ever made in my life, ever. And I almost regret making it,” Calvin Sr. said. “But at the same time, to see your child going through this, you don’t want this for your child.”

Quietly crying next to her husband, Nicole nodded as he said, “When they were working on him, he was not really breathing.”

“C.J.’s spirit was not there,” she said.


Dickey’s parents say they believe their son’s death was preventable.

“I keep asking Calvin [Sr.], what could they have done?” Nicole said. “What could they have possibly done [at Bucknell] that he has not experienced in Florida?”

They are still waiting on the results of the local coroner’s report. A private autopsy requested by the family, performed by Dr. Jose SuarezHoyos in Tampa after the local coroner completed his autopsy, found that several organs, including the lungs, had red blood cells in the sickle shape.

The NCAA has required athletes to be tested for sickle cell trait since 2010, a move that stemmed from a settlement agreement with the family of Dale Lloyd II, a Rice University football player who collapsed during practice and died from rhabdomyolysis.

In its online fact sheet for coaches, the NCAA says, “Incidents of sudden death in athletes with sickle cell trait have been exclusive to conditioning sessions rather than game or skill practice situations. … Coaches should conduct appropriate sport-specific conditioning based on sound scientific principles and be ready to intervene when student-athletes show signs of distress. Student-athletes can begin to experience symptoms after only one to three minutes of sprinting, or in any other full exertion of sustained effort, thus quickly increasing the risk of complications.”

The pamphlet provides about a dozen suggestions for how athletes with sickle cell trait can moderate their exercise, including: “Implement a slow and gradual preseason conditioning regimen that prepares them for the rigors of the sport,” “be provided adequate rest and recovery between repetitions, especially during ‘gassers’ and intense station or ‘mat’ drills” and “be allowed to set their own pace while conditioning.”

The NCAA did not respond to questions sent by ESPN.

David Beaty, who recruited Lloyd to Rice as the team’s offensive coordinator, said he didn’t realize at the time how dangerous sickle cell trait could be. As the head coach at the University of Kansas, Beaty required players with sickle cell trait to wear a different color jersey or helmet during workouts so trainers and coaches could easily identify them if they began to struggle.

“I made sure that every time we go over our medical report, which is every single day, at the bottom of the report are the sickle cell kids. And every single day, I would read their names off until all of us coaches had committed it to memory,” said Beaty, who is now the wide receivers coach at Florida Atlantic University.

Beaty said he would like to see the NCAA strengthen its mandates and require all coaches to receive additional education on death associated with sickle cell trait.

“They don’t have to die,” Beaty reiterated. “There’s no drill, no practice, no amount of pushing, no lesson to be learned. There’s nothing worth a kid’s life.”

The day before Dickey collapsed, he and his father met with Bucknell’s coaching staff, including assistant offensive line coach Sean Pearson. According to Calvin Sr., Pearson told him, “You’re delivering a young man to me now. I’m going to deliver you a man when he’s finished here at Bucknell. We’re going to take good care of your son.”

Calvin Sr. and his wife now want answers from the university and its coaches.

“I want to hear from them,” Calvin Sr. said. “Not sugar-coating it, but who didn’t do what? Who should have done something and what could have been done or should have been done so this doesn’t happen again.”

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2025 MLB Home Run Derby: The field is set! Who is the slugger to beat?

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2025 MLB Home Run Derby: The field is set! Who is the slugger to beat?

The 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby is fast approaching — and the field is set.

Braves hometown hero Ronald Acuna Jr. became the first player to commit to the event, which will be held at Truist Park in Atlanta on July 14 (8 p.m. ET on ESPN). He was followed by MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, James Wood of the Washington Nationals, Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins, Oneil Cruz of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays, Brent Rooker of the Athletics and Jazz Chisholm Jr. of the New York Yankees.

On Friday, however, Acuna was replaced by teammate Matt Olson.

With all the entrants announced, let’s break down their chances at taking home this year’s Derby prize.

Full All-Star Game coverage: How to watch, schedule, rosters, more


2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 434 feet

Why he could win: Olson is a late replacement for Acuna as the home team’s representative at this year’s Derby. Apart from being the Braves’ first baseman, however, Olson also was born in Atlanta and grew up a Braves fan, giving him some extra motivation. The left-handed slugger led the majors in home runs in 2023 — his 54 round-trippers that season also set a franchise record — and he remains among the best in the game when it comes to exit velo and hard-hit rate.

Why he might not: The home-field advantage can also be a detriment if a player gets too hyped up in the first round. See Julio Rodriguez in Seattle in 2023, when he had a monster first round, with 41 home runs, but then tired out in the second round.


2025 home runs: 36 | Longest: 440 feet

Why he could win: It’s the season of Cal! The Mariners’ catcher is having one of the greatest slugging first halves in MLB history, as he’s been crushing mistakes all season . His easy raw power might be tailor-made for the Derby — he ranks in the 87th percentile in average exit velocity and delivers the ball, on average, at the optimal home run launch angle of 23 degrees. His calm demeanor might also be perfect for the contest as he won’t get too amped up.

Why he might not: He’s a catcher — and one who has carried a heavy workload, playing in all but one game this season. This contest is as much about stamina as anything, and whether Raleigh can carry his power through three rounds would be a concern. No catcher has ever won the Derby, with only Ivan Rodriguez back in 2005 even reaching the finals.


2025 home runs: 24 | Longest: 451 feet

Why he could win: He’s big, he’s strong, he’s young, he’s awesome, he might or might not be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. This is the perfect opportunity for Wood to show his talent on the national stage, and he wouldn’t be the first young player to star in the Derby. He ranks in the 97th percentile in average exit velocity and 99th percentile in hard-hit rate, so he can still muscle the ball out in BP even if he slightly mishits it. His long arms might be viewed as a detriment, but remember the similarly tall Aaron Judge won in 2017.

Why he might not: His natural swing isn’t a pure uppercut — he has a pretty low average launch angle of just 6.2 degrees — so we’ll see how that plays in a rapid-fire session. In real games, his power is primarily to the opposite field, but in a Home Run Derby you can get more cheapies pulling the ball down the line.


2025 home runs: 20 | Longest: 479 feet

Why he could win: Buxton’s raw power remains as impressive as nearly any hitter in the game. He crushed a 479-foot home run earlier this season and has four others of at least 425 feet. Indeed, his “no doubter” percentage — home runs that would be out of all 30 parks based on distance — is 75%, the highest in the majors among players with more than a dozen home runs. His bat speed ranks in the 89th percentile. In other words, two tools that could translate to a BP lightning show.

Why he might not: Buxton is 31 and the Home Run Derby feels a little more like a younger man’s competition. Teoscar Hernandez did win last year at age 31, but before that, the last winner older than 29 was David Ortiz in 2010, and that was under much different rules than are used now.


2025 home runs: 16 | Longest: 463 feet

Why he could win: If you drew up a short list of players everyone wants to see in the Home Run Derby, Cruz would be near the top. He has the hardest-hit ball of the 2025 season, and the hardest ever tracked by Statcast, a 432-foot missile of a home run with an exit velocity of 122.9 mph. He also crushed a 463-foot home run in Anaheim that soared way beyond the trees in center field. With his elite bat speed — 100th percentile — Cruz has the ability to awe the crowd with a potentially all-time performance.

Why he might not: Like all first-time contestants, can he stay within himself and not get too caught up in the moment? He has a long swing, which will result in some huge blasts, but might not be the most efficient for a contest like this one, where the more swings a hitter can get in before the clock expires, the better.


2025 home runs: 23 | Longest: 425 feet

Why he could win: Although Caminero was one of the most hyped prospects entering 2024, everyone kind of forgot about him heading into this season since he didn’t immediately rip apart the majors as a rookie. In his first full season, however, he has showed off his big-time raw power — giving him a chance to become just the third player to reach 40 home runs in his age-21 season. He has perhaps the quickest bat in the majors, ranking in the 100th percentile in bat speed, and his top exit velocity ranks in the top 15. That could translate to a barrage of home runs.

Why he might not: In game action, Caminero does hit the ball on the ground quite often — in fact, he’s on pace to break Jim Rice’s record for double plays grounded into in a season. If he gets out of rhythm, that could lead to a lot of low line drives during the Derby instead of fly balls that clear the fences.


2025 home runs: 19 | Longest: 440 feet

Why he could win: The Athletics slugger has been one of the top power hitters in the majors for three seasons now and is on his way to a third straight 30-homer season. Rooker has plus bat speed and raw power, but his biggest strength is an optimal average launch angle (19 degrees in 2024, 15 degrees this season) that translates to home runs in game action. That natural swing could be picture perfect for the Home Run Derby. He also wasn’t shy about saying he wanted to participate — and maybe that bodes well for his chances.

Why he might not: Rooker might not have quite the same raw power as some of the other competitors, as he has just one home run longer than 425 feet in 2025. But that’s a little nitpicky, as 11 of his home runs have still gone 400-plus feet. He competed in the college home run derby in Omaha while at Mississippi State in 2016 and finished fourth.


2025 home runs: 17 | Longest: 442 feet

Why he could win: Chisholm might not be the most obvious name to participate, given his career high of 24 home runs, but he has belted 17 already in 2025 in his first 61 games after missing some time with an injury. He ranks among the MLB leaders in a couple of home run-related categories, ranking in the 96th percentile in expected slugging percentage and 98th percentile in barrel rate. His raw power might not match that of the other participants, but he’s a dead-pull hitter who has increased his launch angle this season, which might translate well to the Derby, even if he won’t be the guy hitting the longest home runs.

Why he might not: Most of the guys who have won this have been big, powerful sluggers. Chisholm is listed at 5-foot-11, 184 pounds, and you have to go back to Miguel Tejada in 2004 to find the last player under 6 foot to win.

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Reds’ Fraley to play through partially torn labrum

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Reds' Fraley to play through partially torn labrum

CINCINNATI — Cincinnati Reds right fielder Jake Fraley was activated from the 10-day injured list on Saturday.

He had injured his right shoulder while trying to make a diving catch June 23 against the New York Yankees.

An MRI revealed a partially torn labrum that will eventually require surgery. Fraley received a cortisone shot and will try to play through it for the rest of the season.

The Reds were 7-4 in his absence.

Christian Encarnacion-Strand, who hasn’t played since Noelvi Marte returned from the IL on July 4, was optioned to Triple-A Louisville.

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Royals P Lorenzen (illness) scratched from start

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Royals P Lorenzen (illness) scratched from start

Kansas City Royals right-hander Michael Lorenzen was scratched from Saturday’s start due to an illness.

Left-hander Angel Zerpa replaced Lorenzen for the game against the visiting New York Mets.

Lorenzen, 33, is 5-8 with a 4.61 ERA through 18 starts this season.

Zerpa, 25, is 3-1 with a 3.89 ERA in 40 appearances out of the bullpen this season. His last start was in August 2023.

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