Detroit Mercy women's basketball coach accused of emotionally abusing players; season canceled
Multiple players and parents detailed alleged 'emotional, mental and physical abuse' from the coach
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Detroit Mercy women’s basketball canceled the remainder of their 2020-21 season after coach AnnMarie Gilbert was accused of "emotional, mental and physical abuse," according to reports.
Fourteen players signed a letter to Athletic Director Robert Vowels Jr. detailing allegations of player mistreatment and potential NCAA infractions under Gilbert, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday. Multiple parents of student-athletes also told the paper of the children’s frustrations. One parent told the newspaper that it has "been a nightmare" under the first-year head coach.
Gilbert has not responded to any of the allegations made by the players.
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One parent told Fox 2 Detroit that Gilbert allegedly told players not to report whether they had COVID-19 symptoms on gameday and committed other NCAA violations.
"Complete and total abuse of CARA hours: these are hours mandated by the NCAA," the parent told the station. "They have been in the gym way more than they should have been in the gym."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CARA stands for "countable athletically related activities," limiting playing and practice sessions for student-athletes. According to the Free Press, Players were also allegedly told to avoid telling trainers they were injured, do extra workouts to show their commitment to the program and to drop classes that interfered with practice time.
Another parent told the Free Press that they thought the issues were "isolated."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It makes it tough under COVID when there’s no interaction between parents -- you don’t see each other at games, there’s just no connection there. Last weekend, everybody got on a Zoom and told their stories. It started real slow, and then somebody told a story and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ And then someone else did," the parent said.
"It’s like, ‘Oh, she’s just evil. She’s bad to everybody."
The letter also accused Gilbert of fostering an environment "so toxic and draining that players have made comments in the locker room about having suicidal thoughts as well as purposely injuring themselves" to avoid Gilbert and her coaching styles.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Vowels released a statement on the issue.
"The health and well-being of our student-athletes is our athletic department's top priority. We have talked with all players and members of our women's basketball program about their concerns. we take them very seriously and will continue to review them closely," Vowels said.
Detroit Mercy hired Gilbert in April after she went 135-18 at Division II Virginia Union.
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Vowels said at the time that Gilbert was their first choice because of her "depth of experience as a head coach at Division I, Division II and Division III and is an excellent recruiter."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.