Former TCU wide receiver Kolby Listenbee alleges the pressure he felt to play through serious injury during his senior season may have cost him an NFL career.
Listenbee filed a lawsuit against the university, head coach Gary Patterson, athletic director Chris Conte and others, claiming he felt “continually harassed, humiliated, pressured, and threatened” to stay on the field while recovering from a groin injury that required at least two months of rest.
Listenbee suffered the injury while corralling a touchdown pass in TCU’s third game of the 2015 season against SMU, according to the suit filed in Dallas County Court, and days later was diagnosed with osteitis pubis, which causes inflammation around the groin area.
Even after hobbling to the medical area on the TCU sideline, Listenbee said he was immediately badgered to get back on the field by Patterson, assistant coach Rusty Burns and then-offensive coordinator Doug Meacham. When he said he was in too much pain, Patterson was “visibly upset,” according to the suit.
Though Listenbee sat out the next two games against Texas Tech and Texas, he said he still was coerced into practicing. The coaches allegedly used tactics such as calling him “soft” and claiming he was “faking” the injury in front of the team as well as threatening to dismiss him from the football program and the school. They even warned him that if he did not return to action soon, they would inform NFL scouts he had faked an injury and wasn’t ready to turn professional, the suit claims.
Listenbee did not miss a game the rest of the season despite feeling “immense pain” and having “limited mobility” in his first game back, he said. While allegedly receiving up to three steroid injections a game to help ease the pain, Listenbee managed 597 yards receiving and five touchdown catches in a 13-2 season for the Horned Frogs.
The consistent injections forced Listenbee to have surgery to repair a sports hernia just a month before the NFL Combine, according to the suit. The Bills drafted the 6-foot receiver in the sixth round, but he was soon placed on the non-football injury list and required another surgery, in which a metal plate was inserted to rejoin his pelvic bones.
Buffalo waived Listenbee, 24, last year and he bounced from the Dolphins’ to the Colts’ practice squads, before signing a reserves/futures contract with Indianapolis in January.
TCU issued a statement Thursday in defense of its coaching and medical staff and has since filed its own counter-lawsuit, arguing that the university cannot be held responsible, according to TCU Diehards.
“TCU takes tremendous pride in its long-standing tradition of excellence in providing a positive experience for its student-athletes, especially in the areas of care, prevention and rehabilitation of athletic injuries,” the university said in a statement.
Listenbee is seeking damages of over $1 million from multiple defendants.