Ferd Berfel wrote: But wasn't the coach on record after the incident as saying he taught them to throw at players timing pitches?
No, he said that he taught pitchers to pitch inside to hitters, not throw at them before the game starts.
According to the article linked above:
Christensen was suspended for the remainder of the season along with Wichita State pitching coach Brent Kemnitz, who allegedly instructed his pitchers to throw at batters who stood too near the plate and tried to time their warm-up pitches. (Kemnitz was reinstated the following season and remains a member of the Wichita State staff today.)
I guess the term "allegedly" indicates that there wasn't complete consensus on whether Kemnitz taught him to do that or not, but obviously the guys weren't instructed that it wasn't okay to do so. Considering the outrage after the incident, I find it unlikely that Kemnitz would admit to giving the order anyway, so I guess we'll never know for sure, but I doubt that the author of the article would put that phrase in there if he just made it up... More importantly though, why would the pitching coach be suspended if he had no role in the incident?
As to my earlier comments about WSU fans defending the incident, there were comments on ValleyTalk over the years where WSu fans did just that.
If the entire incident is the cause of the downfall of the WSU program, I guess there is Karma after all. Was the WSu catcher ever suspended?