The Detroit Mercy women’s basketball team canceled the rest of the season on Thursday after players and their parents accused trainer AnnMarie Gilbert of abuse and mistreatment, according to The Detroit Free Press.
Fourteen players and their parents signed a letter on Sunday and sent it to sports director Robert Vowels Jr., detailing several abuse allegations surrounding Gilbert – who was hired in April.
“It was a nightmare,” a father told The Detroit Free Press on condition of anonymity. “Our girls are just not the same.”
Parents and players accuse the Detroit Mercy coach of abuse
The parents, according to the report, first held a video conference together and started sharing stories when they realized how bad the situation had become. They were “amazed by the horrible stories of total disrespect for the care and well-being of our student-athletes”.
“It has become painfully obvious that our young women are experiencing emotional, mental and physical abuse under the leadership of [Gilbert]”, They wrote in the letter, via The Detroit Free Press. “Many of us encourage our daughters to seek help from the administration, but the girls are terrified of retaliation by Coach Gilbert, who has created a hostile environment of fear and isolation. … Some players report that they have never had a battle with mental health until this season. “
Among the allegations, players accused Gilbert of telling them not to tell coaches if they thought they were injured. She would have told the team that “if your bone is not out, you need to give something”. They were also allegedly instructed to “disregard or not report” the symptoms of COVID-19, said that they needed to do extra exercises to show their commitment to the team and that they should abandon classes that interfered with their practice time – even if those classes were forced to graduate.
Players were also informed that they were not “committed to the success of the program” if they prioritized academics, and technical assistants were “humiliated and harassed in front of players and on the sides”. Some claimed that Gilbert was trying to force them all to enter the transfer portal, and that they were instructed not to speak to the Vowels.
“You have a lot of complaints about the teams. This is not unheard of, ”a father told The Detroit Free Press. “But you have a 100% share. I don’t care if you are the girl at the end of the bench who is not getting any minutes or a match that is past 30 minutes, everyone has exactly the same complaints. “
Detroit Mercy cancels season
Vowels met with the players individually on Tuesday to discuss the letter and allegations, although he allegedly demanded a team meeting with him on Wednesday after Gilbert showed up for practice ready to go.
The players met with Vowels on Wednesday afternoon and said they would refuse to play in the next game on Saturday if Gilbert was still their coach. It was then that the decision to cancel the season completely was made.
“The health and well-being of our student-athletes is the top priority of our athletics department,” an athletics department spokesman told The Detroit Free Press in a statement. . We take them very seriously and will continue to analyze them closely.
“As we prioritized the needs of our student-athletes during this challenging academic year, we decided to suspend the 2020-21 women’s basketball season.”
The Titans finished the year just 1-13 and lost six in a row.
Gilbert was hired in April to replace Bernard Scott. She had previously trained in Eastern Michigan, although she resigned in 2012 after receiving a two-year show cause due to several NCAA violations. The 52-year-old has spent five seasons at Virginia Union at Division II level.
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