Story 32

Gender: Female
Grade Level of Event: College
Sport Played: Soccer
Your Story: I am a university faculty member. I had players on our Women’s Soccer team confide in me regarding the abusive coaching they were facing. This included body shaming, consistent threats of scholarship reduction, belittling/ignoring mental health concerns (including dismissing discussions of suicide by several athletes), and forcing them to play through injury to maintain their scholarships. I took their testimonial documentation explaining the abuse to my immediate supervisor, our Provost. A week later I was given a Performance Improvement Plan by our Provost and HR department and told to stop “wasting the administration’s time” with philosophical differences or false notions of expectations of athlete well-being. I was accused of trying to dismantle athletics and was told I needed to encourage and support the athletic staff.