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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
INDIANAPOLIS — Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck defended his program against what he called “baseless allegations” of mistreatment by former players and others in a recent report.
Fleck told ESPN that the claims in a Wednesday report from Front Office Sports have “been looked into multiple times since 2017” with no wrongdoing found.
Several former Minnesota players told Front Office Sports that Fleck would overlook positive drug tests and other team rules violations for players who had accumulated enough goodwill through a points system called Fleck Bank. The former players and others said excessive workouts were used as punishment and described a cultlike culture that contained significant intimidation.
Fleck said Minnesota has set up six channels where players can report mistreatment, including directly to athletic director Mark Coyle, who told Front Office Sports that he had never heard such claims from Gophers players. Fleck noted that Minnesota’s athletic department followed the football program’s lead in not permitting physical exercise to be used as punishment for athletes.
“Our programming culture is proven to work on and off the field, and it’s always done in a first-class manner,” Fleck told ESPN. “There are tons of testimonials from past, current and future Gophers.”
Fleck said during his Big Ten media days news conference that the Fleck Bank was an analogy he mostly used during the 2017 and 2018 seasons about player investment in the program and how those who put more in will have better experiences.
“There was no currency ever exchanged. There was no coins that ever existed,” Fleck said. “It was an analogy simply to explain investment for life, a life lesson of investment, simply that. No one ever got out of any type of punishment for that.”
He added that punishments used in the program are cleaning the weight room early in the morning or watching videos on tardiness and writing letters to professors for those who are late to classes.
Fleck told ESPN that the claims stem from a former Minnesota faculty member who he said “clearly has a personal vendetta against myself and our football program.” He added that he believes the majority of players who speak to the former faculty member have been dismissed or removed from Minnesota’s program.
“You are who you are, and you’re running a very, very open, transparent program,” Fleck said. “Our university knows that, our athletic department, our athletic director know that, and they experience it every single day.”
Fleck is entering his seventh year at Minnesota and has a record of 44-27 at the school with four bowl appearances and a top-10 finish in 2019.