Oh, you’re hurt? You better play anyway.

Inside Higher Ed reports.

Forced to Play While Injured?

In a series of impassioned tweets, a former University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign football player said Sunday that the university’s coaching staff has created a culture of mistreatment that pressures athletes into playing while injured.

The tweets, written by Simon Cvijanovic, a former linebacker at Illinois, attracted much attention, prompting a response from the university on Monday. In a phone call with reporters, Mike Thomas, the university’s athletic director, expressed surprise at the accusations.

There will be a review of the claims, Thomas said, though he declined to describe the scope or timeline of such an investigation, and he said that the university does not plan on releasing a report of its findings. He described the Twitter comments as a “personal attack” on Tim Beckman, the university’s head football coach. Thomas backed Beckman on Monday, saying that the coach puts the welfare of his players “above anything else.”