Stinson trial: Teen's father recalls how views changed

This from C-J:

Gilpin had defended coaches

Max Gilpin's father told a Jefferson County jury Tuesday that he initially defended the Pleasure Ridge Park High School coaches who oversaw the football practice where his son, Max, collapsed from heat stroke, telling the media that they hadn't done anything wrong and tried the best they could to help his son.

“I didn't see them tell Max to run or point any fingers at him or deny him water,” Jeff Gilpin testified.

But he said his views changed after more facts emerged on the way former head coach Jason Stinson conducted that Aug. 20, 2008, practice. And he criticized Stinson for standing idly by while his son waited for an ambulance.

“He was standing there … with a nervous look, never doing anything,” said Gilpin, who arrived near the practice's end.

Gilpin's testimony, in which defense lawyers pointed out how his account of the case had changed in the months after Max died, punctuated a day of revealing testimony in Stinson's trial on reckless homicide and wanton endangerment charges.

For example, Gilpin testified that Max took creatine, an over-the-counter supplement used to stimulate muscle growth, for only a limited time in the spring of 2008, and without his approval.

But Stinson's attorneys said that Gilpin told police in a September 2008 interview that Max took creatine from November 2007 until May 2008 — under his supervision....