So, most know about men's bball coach Mike Rice's verbal/physical abuse toward his basketball players, then the Rutger AD's resignation. Rutgers goes and hires a women and it turns out that she may have been quilty of verbal/physical abuse when she was a volleyball coach at Tennessee.
Sixteen years ago, members of the University of Tennessee women's volleyball team gathered for a last meeting with their head coach, Julie Hermann. In gym shorts or jeans, some piled onto a black leather couch. Others sat on the floor, cross-legged, almost breathless.
Many of them remember Hermann standing over them, as she had at hundreds of practices and matches. For several minutes, as the players recall, she said nothing.
The players say everyone, including the athletic director, had been brought together by a letter all 15 players on the team had submitted. In it, the players said, their coach had ruled through humiliation, fear and emotional abuse.
"The mental cruelty that we as a team have suffered is unbearable," the players wrote. Specifically, they said the coach had called them "whores, alcoholics and learning disabled."
In blunt terms, the players wrote, "It has been unanimously decided that this is an irreconcilable issue."
Hermann, the players say, absorbed the words, turned to her team, and said simply: "I choose not to coach you guys."
Sixteen years ago, members of the University of Tennessee women's volleyball team gathered for a last meeting with their head coach, Julie Hermann. In gym shorts or jeans, some piled onto a black leather couch. Others sat on the floor, cross-legged, almost breathless.
Many of them remember Hermann standing over them, as she had at hundreds of practices and matches. For several minutes, as the players recall, she said nothing.
The players say everyone, including the athletic director, had been brought together by a letter all 15 players on the team had submitted. In it, the players said, their coach had ruled through humiliation, fear and emotional abuse.
"The mental cruelty that we as a team have suffered is unbearable," the players wrote. Specifically, they said the coach had called them "whores, alcoholics and learning disabled."
In blunt terms, the players wrote, "It has been unanimously decided that this is an irreconcilable issue."
Hermann, the players say, absorbed the words, turned to her team, and said simply: "I choose not to coach you guys."
