by John Luciew | published May 21, 2024 | updated May 24, 2024

A second team doctor with Penn State football testified Tuesday about multiple times that he said Coach James Franklin attempted to interfere with the medical decisions of team doctors and trainers.

This interference included a player who attempted to kill himself by throwing himself out a window, according to Dr. Pete Seidenberg, who served as a primary care team physician during Franklin’s early years as head coach. Seidenberg is no longer with Penn State and practices out of state.

“Thankfully someone stopped him,” Seidenberg said of the player, who was not named in open court in Dauphin County.

The suicidal player was still receiving treatment in short-term psychiatric care when Seidenberg testified Franklin and then-Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour wanted the player medically disqualified from the team.

Seidenberg testified this would have meant the player would lose his Penn State scholarship so Franklin could offer it to another player during the upcoming offseason.

UPDATE: It was later clarified that under NCAA rules, the medically disqualified player would not have lost his scholarship benefits at Penn State, but he would be forever banned from playing football there. The medical disqualification also would make a new scholarship available for another player.

Seidenberg testified he and Dr. Scott Lynch, then Penn State’s director of athletic medicine and orthopedic consultant to the football team, declined to follow Franklin’s and Barbour’s request to medically disqualify the player at that time. Seidenberg said it would have been the equivalent of disqualifying a player with a torn ACL before he received surgery.

The incident was one of several detailed Tuesday by Seidenberg as part of the ongoing trial brought by Lynch.

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