Cal football aide under fire since player death is let go

Damon Harrington in 2013. MANDATORY CREDIT GOLDENBEARSPORTS.COM Damon Harrington in 2013. MANDATORY CREDIT GOLDENBEARSPORTS.COM Photo: GoldenBearSports.com 2013 Photo: GoldenBearSports.com 2013 Image 1 of / 4 Caption Close Cal football aide under fire since player death is let go 1 / 4 Back to Gallery

The football assistant who devised a drill that led to a player’s death in 2014 is no longer working for Cal after the school hired Justin Wilcox as head coach this month.

The assistant coach, Damon Harrington, created and oversaw a Feb. 7, 2014, workout that led to the collapse and death of walk-on defensive lineman Ted Agu, a 21-year-old student preparing to go to medical school.

The university paid $4.75 million to Agu’s family to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit as some faculty members and critics of the football program called for Harrington to be fired.

But rather than terminate Harrington’s contract, the school extended it. He continued to coach until Sonny Dykes — the head coach who recruited Harrington — was fired this month. All other assistants were also let go.

Cal will continue to pay Harrington through June 30, the end of his contract, although his salary of $12,500 per month would be reduced by however much a new job were to pay.

The multimillion-dollar settlement and uproar from faculty came after The Chronicle reported that attorneys for UC admitted liability and negligence in Agu’s death.

The admission by the school capped months of confidential depositions, obtained by The Chronicle, during which former Cal football players disputed the narrative that university officials told the public and the media about the events surrounding Agu’s death.

The teammates said Agu struggled for an extended period and fell several times before he finally collapsed and team officials intervened.

The players’ testimony prompted a forensic pathologist to revise his conclusions on Agu’s cause of death — which he initially attributed to a common heart disease but later said was related to Agu’s sickle-cell trait, which experts believe can lead to a metabolic crisis under extreme exertion. Whereas the heart problem is typically unexpected and difficult to prevent, the latter condition was known to Cal’s medical staff, and its symptoms tend to appear and worsen gradually.

The conditioning drill, which the team hadn’t done before, involved players sprinting up and down a hill as they held a thick rope together.

An initial review commissioned by the school, which cleared coaches and trainers of wrongdoing, was conducted by two investigators with personal ties to the Cal athletics staff and relied heavily on interviews with players handpicked by athletic-program administrators, The Chronicle revealed last year. The evaluators set out to examine Harrington’s involvement in not only Agu’s death in 2014 but also his potential role in inciting a player in 2013 to attack a teammate who missed practice.

As noted by a fan blog, football players on the team were quick to defend and praise Harrington despite criticism by faculty.

Chancellor Nicholas Dirks in July ordered a new review of the strength and conditioning program after The Chronicle reported on the possible conflicts of interest and methodology in the first one.

The new probe will continue despite Dykes and his staff leaving, said Dan Mogulof, a spokesman for the campus.

Harrington has been replaced by Torre Becton, who previously coached at USC and Washington.

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov