Photo : Mark Humphrey ( AP

Tennessee State sophomore Christion Abercrombie suffered a devastating head injury in the first half of his team’s loss to Vanderbilt Saturday. According to Tennessee State head coach Rod Reed, Abercrombie suffered the injury while “taking on a block” during an otherwise typical football play, and came to the sideline complaining of a headache:

“Immediately, you go into concussion protocol at that point,” Reed said. “He was removed from the game and as they were taking him into the locker room he collapsed and the EMTs took over from there.”


Abercrombie was reportedly rushed to Vanderbilt Medical Center, where he underwent emergency surgery and was in critical condition as of Monday morning. Multiple crowdfunding drives have been launched via GoFundMe to help Abercrombie’s family deal with what are certain to be enormous medical costs. But according to a report from the Tennessean, at least two of those drives have been abandoned after the NCAA warned TSU that the donations could affect Abercrombie’s eligibility:



Earlier Monday, two other GoFundeMe pages were launched by individuals — Fachon Reed, the sister of TSU coach Rod Reed, and Nashville resident Jake Waddell. Those accounts were taken down at TSU’s request because of a potential violation of NCAA rules. The NCAA also told TSU any other crowd-funding attempts may put Abercrombie’s eligibility in jeopardy.




One crowdfunding drive remains active on GoFundMe, started by Jennifer Bell, who is TSU’s Associate Athletic Director for Compliance, and whose job it is to ensure that the university and its various agents and representatives “abide by the NCAA, university and conference rules and regulations.”

Because when you’re trying to do a human thing and support the family of a college kid who’s in critical condition following a life-threatening injury, it’s important that your efforts be coordinated by a university official who’s intricately acquainted with the unyielding bureaucratic limitations of the NCAA’s forced amateurism.