University women’s volleyball players claim their coach subjected them to relentless physical and mental abuse and forced them to play and train while seriously injured.
University of Idaho head coach Chris Gonzalez is accused of telling one girl she had ‘strong legs and a strong butt’, and others were ‘built like linebackers.’
Teenage student-athletes said they regularly cried in their locker room, their grades suffered, and at least one was tagged as a ‘red flag for suicide’.
Dozens of avoidable injuries were suffered due to excessive training and disregard of warnings from medical staff, with 14 players on the injury report at one time, and the girls were denied food to the point of almost blacking out on court.
The allegations against Gonzalez are detailed in an 11-page complaint and eight-page ‘grievance list’. They contain more than 80 examples of alleged ‘verbal/emotional abuse, physical abuse, intimidation and harassment’ over the past two seasons, in which the team won only five games.
University of Idaho women’s volleyball players claim their coach Chris Gonzalez (pictured) subjected them to relentless physical and mental abuse and forced them to play and train while seriously injured
Marissa Drange (left), who said she lost 15lbs in two months during the 2022 season due to being frequently denied food by Gonzalez, and Kate Doorn (right) both signed the complaints
Star player Emma Patterson (pictured) filed complaints signed by a dozen other players last year that are under review by Iowa’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigation
Claims of harassment, intimidation, and discrimination also included disregard for player safety during training drills and instances of coaches driving 30mph over the speed limit.
Players said even what they ate and how much they slept was tightly controlled, and anyone who spoke out or otherwise upset Gonzalez was punished with more abuse, punishing extra training, or was benched from matches.
‘Many of the girls are now experiencing a marked decrease in mental and physical health,’ the complaint alleged.
‘The team has witnessed incidents of cheating on the sidelines, in which a coach not present at the match was directing play through a messaging app, calling timeouts and telling the coaches who to sub in and when.’
Gonzalez’s abuse included remarks about their ‘body, ability, personal characteristics intended to demean, hurt and ridicule or embarrass’, the players claimed.
The coach made up demeaning nicknames for players, including one he called ‘Gizmo’ because he believed they looked like a character from the movie Gremlins.
Players described how Gonzales grabbed the around the waist and hips to lift them in the air for a blocking drill, without their consent.
‘Girls feel violated/uncomfortable even when he says, ‘don’t take this out of context’,’ the complaint read.
‘Combined with his verbally abusive language during training, it is inappropriate to make players feel uncomfortable through touch.’
After lifting one girl, he allegedly told her ‘it took a lot more to get you up there than I thought it would’ in reference to her weight.
‘Coach Gonzales was running a drill on a court and when a player did something successfully, he said ‘I love you!!’ then paused before realizing the inappropriateness and added on ‘like a niece’,’ the complaint alleged.
Gonzalez’s allegedly verbally abusive language included numerous comments about their weight and body shape, which he seemed obsessed with.
Teenage student-athletes said they regularly cried in their locker room, their grades suffered, and at least one was tagged as a ‘red flag for suicide’
Gonzalez’s focus on the weight and bodies of his players allegedly extended to denying them food during road trips to away games around the country.
‘I wanted your bodies to be a certain way and I wasn’t seeing any change so I needed to make a change,’ he once said, the complaint alleged.
One player, Marissa Drange, said she lost 15lbs in two months during the 2022 season, and another almost 20lbs in less than two months last year.
Players detailed one trip where they were not given lunch or dinner for a whole day and only allowed to eat from their snack bags that contain about 500 calories total – when they need at least 3,800 calories on match and practice days.
When the team was taken to restaurants, players said Gonzalez would watch what they ate like a hawk, and ban them from eating many items.
‘He would look at how we were eating, if we were eating too fast or too slow. How much we were eating, specifically what we ordered and he would just stare at us,’ one of the team’s starters, Travel Morris, told the Orange County Register.
Several players detailed how they were constantly hungry, and felt dizzy and faint during practice and matches.
Gonzalez’s abuse included remarks about their ‘body, ability, personal characteristics intended to demean, hurt and ridicule or embarrass’, the players claimed
‘Halfway through the practice I was not doing well. I had tunnel vision and my ears were doing everything like where it sounded like you’re underwater and hearing everything through a layer of just fuzz,’ Emma Patterson said.
‘So I was just taking deep breaths, my heart, I could see it beating through my jersey and it went real fast. That happens especially on travel trips, all of a sudden the tunnel vision and feeling like I might pass out.’
Players resorted to finding side doors and back exits in hotels where parents could sneak them food without their coaches catching them.
During layovers at airports they took turns sneaking off to other terminals to buy food while the others kept lookout for Gonzalez and his assistants.
But the risks were huge – anyone caught faced harsh discipline, even being benched or left behind for away games.
One player was excluded for several games, despite being a regular starter, because she ate a calzone at an airport.
Players claimed Gonzalez also monitored their sleep by forcing them to wear OURA rings, and punished players who didn’t get enough sleep.
‘This requires each athlete to allow the OURA ring to monitor their activity in a manner that violates the privacy of the athlete and may reveal personal medical or physical data without their consent,’ the complaint read.
Gonzalez was also said to favor international players over American ones and give them more playing time and less abuse.
Some of the players claimed his abuse also had a racial component, with Morris saying she felt targeted because she was the only mixed-race girl on the team.
‘Every single day at practice I just felt like it was me versus (the coaches) and I feel like there were things that I was being targeted for and because of who I was and because I’m not a specific race, I felt like everything was targeted toward me and it felt very excluded,’ she told the OCR.
Dozens of avoidable injuries were suffered due to excessive training and disregard of warnings from medical staff, with 14 players on the injury report at one time
Despite his demands for perfection from his players, they said Gonzalez showed very little interest in being part of the team.
He drove in his own car instead of riding the bus with the players, and sat far apart from them in airports.
He even turned his University of Iowa Vandals jacket inside out so the team’s name and the sport were not visible.
There were complaints about assistant coaches too, including one example where they allegedly endangered the players.
‘While driving the team vehicle, our assistant coach would drive erratically, apply the brakes extremely hard and randomly swerve left and right when nothing was in the road,’ the complaint read.
‘She exceeded the speed limit and reached over 100 miles per hour at one point, we have photo proof that she went at least 95 miles per hour.’
Gonzalez, who was once a rising star in the college coaching ranks and was an assistant for Team USA, was also criticized by players from earlier in his career.
Amoreena Reynolds explained how hours after a loss, he forced the team into a midnight training session when they were too exhausted to safely practice.
She landed awkwardly after a jump and tore her ACL, LCL, PCL, and meniscus, ending her career in an instant.
‘The only reason the bone didn’t come out of the leg was because I was wearing a knee pad. Otherwise the bone would have come out through the skin,’ she told the OCR.
Reynolds said she was left lying on concrete next to the court while cockroaches scurried around her until practice was over. Only then was she taken to hospital.
Claims of harassment, intimidation, and discrimination also included disregard for player safety during training drills and instances of coaches driving 30mph over the speed limit
Gonzalez, in response to the accusations, only said they were ‘unfounded, displaced, and dishonest’.
He has his defenders, including Kalisha Goree, one of his assistant during the 2022 season, who said he couldn’t be racist because she was a black woman he hired.
She accused the players of being immature, bitter, and entitled who were just ‘having a cry’ because they didn’t get their own way.
‘They’re not used to not playing, they’re not used to being pushed to be mentally better, they’re not used to being pushed to be physically better,’ she told the OCR.
They’re entitled and they don’t appreciate him. They’re trying to pull him down and all he’s trying to do is help them.
‘They’re trying to ruin his name. These allegations are lies. I don’t care if it’s nine or 10 girls making them. If it’s nine or ten girls it’s nine or ten bad apples, it’s nine or 10 lies.’
Chelsey Mason, another of the Iowa players who was a Big Ten All-Academic selection, insisted the complaints were a ‘cry for help’.
‘Complaints levied against Christopher Gonzalez should not be dismissed as pouting or tempestuous outbursts thrown by teenagers and young adults, or overbearing, dissatisfied parents,’ she wrote in a November 30, 2022, letter to Iowa athletic director Terry Gawlik.
‘These are evidence of unprofessional, abusive, manipulative practices that have spanned Gonzalez’s career. These are illustrations of Christopher Gonzalez’s character.’
Gonzalez has his defenders, including Kalisha Goree (pictured), one of his assistant during the 2022 season, who said he couldn’t be racist because she was a black woman he hired
Patterson said Gonzalez’s behavior went far beyond what even her strictest former coaches did.
‘The way he was talking to girls. The way he was just trying to instill complete and utter control through fear, was really not something I’d ever experienced. And I’ve had hard coaches, I’ve had people who are heavy on discipline,’ she told Idaho News.
‘Trying to withhold food, and not feeding players correctly, because in his head we weren’t skinny enough. The team was built like linebackers is what he said, pushing the girls to the ground.’
The players first complained to Gawlik after the 2022 season, but said that and their two detailed complaints letters were mostly ignored.
Instead, they claimed to have been split up to have their stories interrogated for inconsistencies, then dismissed.
Patterson then complained to the university’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigation last October, which is still investigating.
‘There is no definitive date for the investigation to conclude. The investigators have contacted dozens of people for interviews and are working expeditiously,’ it said.
‘We are committed to a timely, but fair, and thorough investigation. Meanwhile, the student-athletes [have] a variety of support services offered to them to help them navigate this challenging time.’
Players have since been allowed to skip training sessions to avoid all non-essential contact with Gonzalez.