Add The New York Post on Google TCU receiver Dozie Ezukanma was hospitalized for three days due to a brain bleed, a concussion and other injuries after then-teammate Jacob Fields allegedly assaulted him in the locker room, according to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by Fort Worth Star Telegram.
Fields, who was arrested Sunday, was allegedly not happy that Ezukanma was outplaying him in practice, which resulted in the alleged altercation.
The transfer from Louisiana Tech was dismissed from the team on Aug. 18, and was recently charged with aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury after turning himself in.
Fields was released later Sunday from the Tarrant County Jail on a $50,000 bond.
The alleged incident occurred Aug. 13 as Ezukanma was sitting in the locker room while looking at his phone inside the Walsh Athletic Complex at the university around 1:20 p.m. when Fields walked up to him and punched him in the head, causing him to fall to the floor, a witness told police.
Fields then proceeded to kick Ezukanma in the back of the head.
Ezukanma reported to police that he lost consciousness after the alleged assault and only recalls being in the training room and asking teammates, “What just happened?”
A police officer noted in the affidavit that Ezukanma also reported having shoulder pain and had skin abrasions on his face.
Sophomore wide receiver Terry Shelton told Ezukanma about the alleged incident, and later confirmed to TCU police that he believed Ezukanma was “knocked out” before hitting the floor and Fields kicked him “as hard as he could.”
Shelton added that he confronted Fields after the alleged assault, pushing him into the lockers and saying, “You can’t be doing that. We are teammates.”
Ezukanma told TCU’s athletic trainer and team doctor that he had a severe headache and ringing in his ears. The junior wide receiver was taken to the hospital, where he was transferred to the ICU after the first CT scan confirmed the brain bleed.
The receiver said he and Fields were “going hard” at each other since the start of training camp and the latter allegedly reached a breaking point.
Ezukanma later shared a text message from Fields with TCU police.
“I made an emotional decision cause how I felt I played the last few practices,” Fields wrote. “I’ll pay every hospital bill and then some to make this right.”
Assistant athletic trainer for the football team Curtis Talley Jr., who drove Ezukanma to the emergency room at Harris Hospital in downtown Fort Worth around 3:20 p.m. that day, was in the training room when he heard Shelton yelling, “We need you over here.”
He found Ezukanma crying from the pain in the locker room and saying “my head hurts.”
Ezukanma underwent two more CT scans while in the ICU, with a second scan conducted around 7:30 p.m. that showed the hematoma had grown.
He then receivered blood pressure and pain control medications.
The third and final scan was done around 11 p.m. It showed Ezukanma was stable, but he remained hospitalized until Aug. 16.
He also suffered a strained AC joint in his shoulder.
TCU head coach Sonny Dykes addressed the alleged assult after Saturday’s 15-10 season-opening loss to UNC in Ireland. Ezukanma did not travel with the team.
“It was something that was certainly out of character for the team and the young man that was involved,” Dykes said. “Look, you got 110 football players. I mean, things happen sometimes.”
Ezukanma, who played at Keller Timber Creek High School in Fort Worth, came into the new season projected as one of the Horned Frogs’ starting wide receivers.
