More on BU's Greenberg

[Vowelguy]

A very detailed story. Kudos to Fagan for her research and reporting.
http://espn.go.com/espnw/news-comme...raits-boston-university-coach-kelly-greenberg


I don't doubt that the pro-Greenberg players are sincere, and did have great experiences. But the positive doesn't offset the negative. I never played college sports so I don't know what are normal motivation tactics, but these seem to cross the line. If true, I think they are grounds for dismissal, regardless of her good works.

Alleged comments by coach to players:

• "She said I was a waste of life, and that I should never have been born,"
• "disgrace to the program -- a nobody"
• "a horrible teammate and a disgrace to the program,"
• "too shy and backward to get anywhere in life."
• "a terrible person, worthless," because an injury was keeping her out of practice.

Two players said they received bullet-point lists from Greenberg about perceived flaws in their characters or bodies. The coach allegedly wrote that one player had a "vanilla personality," while telling another she was "boring and stupid." Tamanosky said she was told her skin was too pale and that she needed to go tanning. (She subsequently did.) Another player said Greenberg told her, "You look sick; you're too white. It's disgusting." And another player was allegedly told she had an irritating personality and blew her nose too loudly.

 

[UcMiami]

Not a good situation - a well written and researched piece with a balancing of the two sides of the coin, but ... It also is telling that the whole team (less one player) was involved in the previous 2007 complaint which I hadn't realized before. Don't know that a coach can survive this broad an issue, or that a school that seems to have dropped the ball 7 years ago can afford to be passive a second time around.
Coaching at an elite level is not a feel good process. Lobo's description of Breanna being made to repeat the same drill over and over again until she got it right (she used the word 'brutal') is an example at Uconn of a tough mental and physical experience for a player. But that happened in public, with the team and reporters present and was specific to basketball skill and concentration on the court. I am also sure that there are meetings on an individual level that deal with physical issues - conditioning, weight, mental/emotional states of specific players. In many ways coaches do end up being 'in loco parentis' and not all parenting is a pretty picture. And each player is a different person so they are each going to have different interaction - Sales was nicknamed 'precious' by her teammates because she never got into the 'doghouse'. But ... there does appear to be a very strong line between 'basketball' activity and personal life drawn at Uconn. And Geno has always had strong associate/assistant coaches that can temper the effect of a single voice. We are rightfully proud that a large and diverse group of players return frequently for visits to the program or attend the FF diners - but that doesn't mean that there are no players that ended up feeling differently about the experience - it would be hard to find any group of 100 people over a thirty year period (broken into 4 year stretches) in an intense endeavor that all came out the other end feeling the same warmth. You hope they all come out feeling respect for the process.
But this, like a few other situations in coaching, seems to be a very different situation. The length of time, the separation in time of the complaints, and the somewhat telltale fact that the external pressures of bad seasons seem to correspond to the internal strife in the program are to good indicators.

 

[HGN]

Geez..............Sort of like a Jeckel and Hyde. Split personality thing. The AD , Lynch himself , should be fired for having covered up this mess for so long and then giving Greenberg a contract that takes her to 2017 after having the whole team , less one player , come in and complain in 2007.