The former Grambling State University volleyball players who were cut earlier this month by the team’s new coach are telling their own stories in a new piece from USA Today.
Chelsea Lucas was hired to coach the Louisiana school’s volleyball squad in February; she had come from the University of Arkansas at Pine-Bluff after posting a sub-.500 record after three seasons. That below-the-line performance didn’t dissuade her from feeling she needed to make big changes to her new roster, though. By the end of March, Lucas had cut all 19 players. Not only did that mean they no longer had a uniform or a role to play on the court, but they no longer had scholarships to pay for their educations.
The former players now tell USA Today that they felt something was off from the very beginning.
From USA Today
In the weeks following her appointment, Lucas’ cold nature with the players continued. They only had three practice sessions together, most of which consisted of ery few volleyball related drills and a lot of punishment-related running, according to multiple players...
...Most players and parents around the program feel Lucas and the athletics department’s decision to cut the roster was premeditated given the circumstances that led up to it.
What, exactly, were those circumstances? For one, a number of players from Lucas’ old Arkansas-Pine Bluff team entered the transfer portal—the NCAA’s system for allowing athletes to move from one university to another—just as Lucas was taking her new job. Former Grambling players say it was a signal that the new coach wanted to bring her former players with her.
There’s now a petition with nearly 2,500 signatures demanding that the former Grambling players get their spots back and that Lucas as well as Grambling’s athletic director, lose their jobs.