As a pair of athletic trainers bracketed a slumping Jordan McNair last spring, shoring up a 6-4, 325-pound load, a cry rang out at the Maryland practice facility:

"Drag his ass across the field!"

If you believe the charges from an ESPN.com investigation into the death of a 19-year-old football player, the order sounds like something his over-the-top coach or out-of-control strength coach might have said.

Instead it came from the head football athletic trainer.

The guy charged with keeping him safe.

Wes Robinson reportedly is on administrative leave, as is the head coach, DJ Durkin, and strength coach, Rick Court. An external investigation is underway into McNair's death, two weeks after that fateful day. The allegations of verbal abuse may not sound much different from what you'd see at plenty of high schools and colleges. But if coaches are coaches, we expect more from ATs, because of the stakes.

So what went wrong at Maryland last spring?

Same thing that can happen anywhere.

Because of the structure of both college and high school athletic programs, ATs face a stacked deck. Most must report to people who have a vested interest in the success of the program, which is where winning and the safety of athletes are occasionally at cross purposes.

An AT can't lose sight of the mission. Hard to do when you're outnumbered.

As a coach once told Dave Burton, Duncanville's long-time AT, now a liaison at Lakewood Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, "You're never going to win, because there's more of us than you."

Over nearly a half-century as an AT, Burton has seen all types on both sides of the coach/AT equation. Listen to the public discourse at a National Athletic Trainers Association convention, he said, and you'd think it's all good.

"But you get someone one-on-one," Burton said, "and they'll say, 'Yeah, that guy's an SOB to work with.'"

From the little we know of the Maryland situation, that dynamic seems to be the case. A long-time employee at Maryland, Robinson had an exemplary record under a couple of previous administrations. "Mild-mannered," sources described him. Once Durkin and Court took over, Robinson apparently began to imitate their overly aggressive style.

"Players aren't the only ones who can be bullied," a former Maryland staffer told ESPN.com.

And that may have led to the tragedy last spring in College Park. According to reports, McNair, a lineman, needed help from teammates simply to complete the last of 10 110-yard sprints. Teammates told ESPN.com that McNair clearly was struggling. He couldn't hold up his head. Couldn't stand without assistance. After Robinson's crass order, the other athletic trainers walked him around the field, hardly a remedy.

Any time an athlete appears to be under stress, Burton said, an AT has a simple duty: Check it out.

Coaches may assume a player is loafing, and if you've been around any athletic programs, it's a common theme. An AT can't afford to make such assumptions.

Burton cited a middle school athlete that coaches considered lazy. Because of Burton's subsequent intercession, the athlete underwent a heart procedure that may have saved his life.

The reported cause of death in McNair's case was heatstroke. How could that happen when it was only 80 degrees and 71 percent humidity? Could be a number of underlying factors, Burton said. If McNair, who was black, had sickle cell trait, it would have ratcheted up his risk. Recent studies have also indicated that the intensity of a workout is as important as the heat index.

In any event, the best remedy for potential heatstroke is a cool tub of water to reduce body temperature as quickly as possible. Robinson apparently didn't order one. The recording of a 911 call indicated that McNair was hyperventilating and unable to control his breath. By the time he was transported to the hospital, his body temperature was reportedly 106.

If McNair's death was preventable, as reports suggest, it should mean more than the dismissals of coaches and an AT. The big picture demands more autonomy for ATs in general.

Not everyone has it like Burton did at Duncanville. His old boss, Bill Savage, long-time athletic director, would often give him a list of coaching finalists from a job search, then tell Burton to call contacts among his peers at the candidates' previous jobs. See what he was like to work with.

For the safety of athletes everywhere, we can't assume that coaches or ADs will do what's right. We can't let ATs be bullied, either. They must be able to do their jobs without fear they'll be fired because they didn't do a coach's bidding instead.

Next time this latent NCAA reform movement wants to make a difference, it should make ATs accountable to school administrators, not the athletic department. Make what happened at Maryland mean something other than another indescribable loss.