It was the first time Chris Gonzalez left the women volleyball players he was coaching at the University of Idaho speechless.
It wouldn’t be the last time.
Gonzalez, hired only weeks earlier, was frustrated and then enraged with how a drill was proceeding in a practice in the spring of 2022, according to five people familiar with the incident. Finally, Gonzalez kicked a player out of the drill and took her place. When the drill still didn’t go as Gonzalez expected, he shoved a player over, knocking her to the ground, according to five people.
“He physically pushed a player,” said Travel Morris, an Idaho middle blocker who participated in the drill. “Like physically in a very, bullying way, he literally told her to move and then pushed her and she fell to the floor.
“He said, ‘Move!’ and just pushed her, like completely just pushed her over,” Morris said. “He pushed her quite aggressively.”
“Everybody looked confused. As soon as it happened everybody on the court looked at each other like, ‘Did he really just do that?’ We all just froze.”
The incident is part of a pattern of alleged abuse by Gonzalez, a former U.S. national team coach, outlined to the Southern California News Group by six Idaho players on the 2023 roster, three former players, and a university employee, who allege Gonzalez physically abused and bullied players, pressured injured players to play and train against the orders of the school’s sports medicine staff, regularly deprived players of food on road trips, body shamed players, made racially insensitive and inappropriate comments to players, and pressured sports medicine staff to share confidential information about players’ weight.
UPDATE: Players can opt out of practice with Gonzalez
In interviews, letters, emails, formal complaints, confidential university documents and voice recordings of Gonzalez, athletic director Terry Gawlik, and other athletic department and university administration officials, the players allege that Gonzalez, a longtime fixture on the Southern California volleyball scene and once considered one of the college game’s rising coaching stars, has created an environment where he targets specific players for almost daily bullying and even physical abuse, where players suffered dozens of avoidable injuries from overtraining or because he ignored the instructions of doctors, trainers and a sports biomechanics expert, withheld food from the team to the point where all nine current and former players said they were constantly hungry and routinely played and practiced while feeling light-headed or dizzy, suffered tunnel vision, and often felt that they were on the verge of passing out or blacking out.
“Through many abusive behaviors, Coach Gonzales and his staff perpetuate a culture of harassment, bullying, and belittling,” a current Idaho starter wrote on behalf of her teammates in a formal complaint to the university obtained by SCNG.
Interviews, emails, letters, confidential university documents and recordings also show that players, their parents, and at least three university employees have repeatedly complained or raised concerns about Gonazelez’s coaching methods and alleged abusive behavior to Gawlik, university administration officials and the school’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigations. At least 13 players have complained to Gawlik or other university officials, according to player interviews, formal complaints and confidential university documents.
Those complaints have routinely been ignored and dismissed by Gawlik and other university officials, all nine players allege.
Players “don’t feel safe playing for (Gonzalez) anymore” a starter told Gawlik, Chris Walsh, the senior associate athletic director for internal administration and wellness, and Blaine Eckles, the university’s dean of students, during an October meeting, according to a recording of the meeting.
“This is a pattern that isn’t something new,” said Marissa Drange, an outside hitter on the 2022 Idaho team.
It is a pattern that players coached by Gonzalez at other universities allege in interviews with SCNG and letters to Idaho officials, that extends back more than 20 years covering the majority if not the entirety of his college coaching career.
“Complaints levied against Christopher Gonzalez should not be dismissed as pouting or tempestuous outbursts thrown by teenagers and young adults, or overbearing, dissatisfied parents,” Chelsey R. Mason, who played for Gonzalez at Iowa, where she was a Big Ten All-Academic selection, wrote in a November 30, 2022 letter to Gawlik. “These are evidence of unprofessional, abusive, manipulative practices that have spanned Gonzalez’s career. These are illustrations of Christopher Gonzalez’s character.
“These are cries for help.”
Current and former Idaho players said they are especially frustrated by what they described as Gawlik’s refusal to take their concerns seriously and her seemingly unwavering defense of Gonzalez.
Gawlik “just wants to turn a blind eye to everything,” said Drange, who transferred to Trinity University in Texas after the 2022 season. “She doesn’t want to admit she made a bad hire.”
“Terry, she doesn’t care,” Morris said.
SCNG asked Gawlik for a response to the allegations against Gonzalez and statements by Idaho players that she and other university officials have been dismissive of the players’ complaints and concerns and have not take effective action against the coach.
“As a general practice, the U of I takes every allegation seriously, investigates them, and responds as soon as possible,” Gawlik wrote in an email to SCNG. She had no further response.
University documents and interviews, however, show that Gawlik and other university officials have not replied to complaints by athletes in a timely manner, if at all.
Morris and Drange were two of eight players, including five starters, who signed a “grievance list” against Gonzalez after the 2022 season that they sent to Gawlik. The document detailed allegations of “nutrition issues,” “disregard for (player) safety,” “mental abuse,” and that Gonzalez relied on “fear & intimidation” to coach the team.
Drange was one of three players who asked to meet with Gawlik after the 2022 season. She refused to meet with the players as a group but met with some of them individually, according to eight current and former players.
“It took a lot of courage to come forward and, yeah, she just turned a blind eye,” Drange said of Gawlik, who in July was appointed to the NCAA Division I council, which is responsible for the day-to-day decision-making for Division I athletic programs.
“It was a gut punch. We felt like we weren’t being heard.
“She’s supposed to look out for female athletes and she was completely dismissive of what we had to say.”
During the 2023 season this past fall, a group of Idaho players submitted an eight-page complaint to university officials detailing more than 80 examples of “verbal/emotional abuse, physical abuse, intimidation and harassment.”
Gawlik, Walsh and Eckles, the university’s dean of students, met with three players on October 30. Gawlik agreed to meet the players, according to an email she wrote to the athletes after she “was contacted by campus OCRI today and they mentioned some Volleyball Athletes spoke with them on some concerns,” although the players had asked to meet with her days earlier.
The players outlined their allegations, how Gonzalez had been dismissive during a recent meeting with team captains about their concerns, and how it was “terrifying” to talk to Gonzalez, according to a recording of the Oct. 30 meeting.
“I know what’s going on,” Walsh told the players during the Oct 30 meeting. “We’re aware of some of the rough waters you guys have been in.”
But Eckles also told the players, “we’re not looking to get into the details of the whole allegations” citing a desire to keep any potential investigation “pristine.”
Eckles sent the players an email after the meeting later that day.
“As a follow-up to our visit, I wanted to communicate a few take-aways from our visit,” Eckles wrote. “1. Your concerns are important and are heard. I want to assure you that they are and will be looked into for appropriate follow-up. 2. If you would like, I am happy to visit with the entire team (if you think that would be helpful) to reassure that retaliation is not appropriate.”
A case manager met with Idaho players November 8, telling them they would follow up in the coming weeks but then did not contact the athletes again.
“(They) failed to get back to us,” a starter said. “It was a dead end. (They) talked to us and then we never heard from anybody.”
The players also said neither Eckles, Gawlick or Walsh followed up with them after the meeting. Walsh did travel with the team on a late season road trip that Gonzalez missed because of a medical issue.
“Nobody got back to us,” a player said.
An Idaho player also reached out on behalf of the team to the university’s Office of Civil Rights and Investigation. On October 24, Trent Taylor, an investigator for the office, confirmed in an email that the office had received the complaint and offered the athlete the opportunity to meet. A week later, on Oct. 31, Taylor emailed the player that an outside law firm, Thompson & Horton, LLP, would be investigating the allegations raised in the players’ complaint.
Yet an attorney for the firm didn’t meet with players until December 13, nearly two months after Taylor first contacted the player. The attorney told the players during the meeting that the firm’s investigation would take at least 60 to 90 days to complete.
Although Eckles in the Oct. 30 meeting referred to “knowing that your season having just ended,” the Vandals still had five matches remaining.
Between October 24 when Taylor first contacted the player and the end of the season on November 17, Gonzalez’ bullying “only got worse,” said a starter, a statement that five other players concurred with.
The combination of Gonzalez’s alleged daily abuse and bullying, and Gawlick and the university’s alleged indifference to their physical and mental safety, players said, has created an environment that led to the Vandals’ 1-27 2023 season and has created widespread depression among team members, where players feel increasingly isolated, and has seen a season-long uptick in player references to suicide at practices, on road trips and away from the court.
“A constant,” said Emma Patterson, a current Idaho middle blocker.
“People not wanting to go out, staying in their room all day, not wanting to cook food, not wanting to go to class, not wanting to engage with anyone or anything,” she continued. “Pretty scary, really scary.”
Among the players’ allegations:
- Gonzalez pushes or shoves players while coaching in practice, according to nine players, a university employee, and multiple complaints submitted to the university. On at least two occasions he has shoved players so hard that he knocked them over.
- While Gonzalez is abusive toward the entire team, he targets two or three players specifically for almost daily bullying that includes degrading comments, revealing their personal information such as their family’s financial status, and threatening of leaving them off travel trips or revoking their their scholarships, according to nine players, and multiple complaints submitted to the university.
- Gonzalez routinely makes critical comments about players’ weight, their muscular structure, the size of their buttocks and complaining that some players looked like “linebackers,” according to nine players, and multiple complaints submitted to the university.
- Gonzalez in particular targeted Morris, the only African American player on the 2022 roster, for bullying, seven players and two people familiar with the situation allege. He also made racially insensitive comments about her, the players allege. “Travel was one of the players who got a large brunt of his mind games and verbal abuse,” Drange said.
- Gonzalez and his coaching staff withheld food from players on road trips, refusing on at least one trip to provide them dinner after a series of long flights to a tournament three time zones away, confiscated food provided to players by their parents or that was included in boxed lunches, monitored their eating during team meals in a way in which players felt intimidated, criticized, or reprimanded, and disciplined players for purchasing their own food on trips, according to player interviews and multiple complaints filed with the university.
- A university expert on sports performance stopped working with Gonzalez when their input on nutrition was ignored. “My disagreement and pushback against his ideas around food may be why they distanced themselves from me,” the professor said. “I no longer work with his team because my advice was no longer being taken and I simply did not have capacity beyond my actual job duties as a professor to continue down that road.”
- Getting enough to eat wasn’t the only concern Idaho players have when traveling to away matches. A Vandal assistant coach, Maria Logan, was clocked driving a car carrying players more than 100 miles per hour, according to five players, and recordings. When Logan noticed a player videoing the speedometer on her phone she slowed to 95 mph, according to the players.
- At one point 14 Idaho players appeared on the sports medicine staff’s injured list during the 2023, according to player interviews and documents. Many of those players were pressured by Gonzalez to play or practice despite orders from team physicians or trainer that they were not fit to participate, players said in interviews and formal complaints. On several occasions, Gonzalez argued with or dismissed the advice of the team’s trainer and a sport biomechanics professor brought in to reduce injuries, and also sought to restrict their authority or influence on the team and access to Vandal players, according to players’ interviews, formal complaints, emails and recordings.
- Nearly two thirds (63.6 percent) of the players who have been on Idaho rosters since Gonzalez was hired have left the program before completing their eligibility. “I’m surprised that the amount of us who have left didn’t raise some questions,” Drange said. Gonzalez’s first recruiting class in 2022 included 12 freshmen. Only four remain on the team.
“I don’t want to even call it his coaching style because we actually receive very little coaching,” Patterson said. “It is all fear-based.”
“He should not be coaching women or anyone for that matter,” Drange said. “And I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through or what we all went through.
“I’m concerned about the female athletes who play for him now. He can do a lot of physical and emotional damage to young women in a short time. He’s not going to change his style, his continued pattern of abuse.”
SCNG provided Gonzalez a detailed list of the allegations raised in this report and gave him the opportunity to respond to each allegation.
Instead, Gonzalez emailed SCNG a brief statement.
“These allegations are unfounded, displaced, and dishonest,” he said.
Kalisha Goree, an Idaho assistant coach during the 2022 season, characterized the allegations as complaints by immature players bitter over a lack of playing time and unwilling to do the work necessary to play at a high level.
“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,” said Goree, who played at Ohio State where Gonzalez was a volunteer assistant coach in 2017.
Six of the Idaho players making allegations against Gonzalez in this report, however, were starters.
“They say, ‘I want to be pushed, dah, dah, dah,’” Goree continued. “Then it’s, ‘No I don’t want to be pushed.’ 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.
“It’s 100 percent lies and it’s unfair because they didn’t get their way so they go and cry about it and make stuff up.”
SCNG also requested comments from Eckles, Walsh, current assistant coaches Maria Logan and Romana Redondo Krišková.
A university spokesperson responded on their behalf in a statement.
“While I cannot comment on a specific incident or employee at our university, I can tell you that we take any allegations of bad behavior seriously,” the statement said. “We fully investigate allegations of wrong doing and take necessary action.”
A rising star
Andre Christopher Gonzalez, a Southern California native who turned 52 this month, first appeared on volleyball’s national radar in the mid-1990s when he coached at Cal Juniors, a nationally prominent age group club based in Southern California. The club produced six Volleyball Magazine All-Americans and 18 Junior Olympic All-Americans. Cal Juniors was owned by Long Beach State women’s head coach Brian Gimmillaro who hired Gonzalez as an assistant coach, a highly coveted job, prior to the 1997 college season.
Gonzalez’s arrival on Gimmillaro’s staff coincided with the beginning of a run where the 49ers reached four NCAA Final Fours in five years undefeated, completing the women’s college game’s first-ever perfect season with 36-0 record and the national title in 1998. Gonzalez assisted in the development of NCAA player of the year and future three-time Olympic beach champion Misty May-Treanor and two-time Olympic medalist Tayyiba Haneef-Park.
Among Long Beach State’s memorabilia from the 1998 season is a photo of Gonzalez and the triumphant NCAA championship team posing with President Clinton in front of a waiting Air Force One.
Gonzalez’s career also appeared ready to take off.
The 49ers were 157-15 in Gonzalez’s five seasons at Long Beach State making him one of the nation’s top college coaching prospects. But Gonzalez had even bigger aspirations.
He joined USA Volleyball’s national team staff as an assistant coach, one of the most sought-after positions in the American sport. He was on the bench as Team USA won medals at the FIVB World Championships, World Cup and World Grand Prix. As head coach, he guided a U.S. national “B” team to a bronze medal at the 2003 Pan American Games.
“I learned more in the one year I played for him than the entire rest of my career,” Goree said. “I’ve heard him talk at coaching conventions and other coaches are so impressed, the biggest names in coaching, and he’s blown their minds.”
But despite his success at Long Beach State and with Team USA, Gonzalez’s career has followed a pattern of bouncing from job to job, from U.S. college jobs to European national team or pro league posts back the American university scene with stops at clubs in Southern California and the Midwest and a recent stop in Japan’s V League. Gonzalez has had at least 15 coaching jobs in the last 21 years.
A constant in all the bouncing around from university to university are allegations of an abusive coach who bullied and body-shamed players and then moved on.
“I have received decades of training from numerous coaches and their respective styles, and I have experience coaching. However, I write to you today not about my career, but on behalf of your Women’s Volleyball players,” Mason, the former Iowa player, said in her letter to Gawlik. “That is because although 20 years apart, at different universities, your Vandals and I (and my teammates at lowa among countless others) share the unpleasant distinction of having survived being coached by Christopher Gonzalez.”
His first stop after Team USA was in fact Iowa, where he was hired by head coach Rita Crockett to lead an overhaul of a program that had gone 44-99 overall, 24-66 in the Big Ten the previous five seasons under Crockett.
“We thought of him as Lord Farquaad, from ‘Shrek’ the movie,” said former Iowa player Amoreena Reynolds, referring to the film’s dwarfish villain. “That was how he presented himself, this minor, little man who was bold and outspoken.”
While Crockett might have been the head coach, Gonzalaz was the dominant personality in the program, instituting three practices a day in the pre-season, bullying players about food or to play while injured, and body shaming them, Moore and Mason said.
“It was clear Coach Gonzalez was going to utilize fear, intimidation, manipulation, and paranoia to try to elicit the desired change in players and staff,” Mason wrote in her letter to Gawlik.
Gonzalez led a practice drill where he hit the ball as hard as he could at close range toward a player’s head, Mason and Reynold said.
“Right at your face,” Reynolds said.
In another drill, Gonzalez demanded players chase down balls no matter where they were hit, even if meant risking crashing into bleachers, chairs or other objects.
“A defensive drill we commonly executed was one in which Coach Gonzalez threw or hit a ball at, to, or near players in their defensive positions,” Mason said. “The expectation was relentless pursuit by all players to bring the ball back into play. The point and goal of this drill does not seem unreasonable, but Coach Gonzalez required pursuit regardless of health and safety of the players in the drill. Consistently, Coach Gonzalez sent athletes after balls that made the player trip and fall off the playing surface (a hardwood court on top of a concrete subfloor); run into chairs, risers and basketball goals; even collide with each other. By running this drill, he chose to direct players into dangerous situations to test their willingness to comply and avoid the punishment they feared should they not do so.”
Injured at 2 a.m., left on the floor with the cockroaches
One incident that season stands out in particular.
Shortly after midnight on September 10, players, coaches and staff returned to Carver-Hawkeye Arena on the Iowa campus after a nearly two-hour bus ride following a straight-set loss at Drake in Des Moines earlier that night. The loss dropped the Hawkeyes to 3-4 on the season.
“We understood that the lowa Volleyball program, and specifically Coach Crockett and Coach Gonzalez’s jobs were under scrutiny based on our performance that season,” Mason said.
“We found the extent of the pressure they felt when after … the loss at Drake.
“Coach Gonzalez informed us that as 12 a.m. was a new day we were going to practice at 12:30 a.m., without violating NCAA training rules. The team trainers and physician urged Gonzalez to reconsider as the players were tired after morning passing and serving practice, a full day of class, travel, competition, and the bus trip back to Iowa City from Des Moines. Coach Gonzalez was adamant a performance that poor warranted more training. We held the practice, and not long after we started, one of our middle hitters, Amoreena Reynolds, was badly injured. She suffered a career-ending ACL injury that she never fully recovered from.”
Twenty years later, that tragic night seems like yesterday to Reynolds.
“It was 2:11 a.m.,” she said, recalling the exact moment of the injury.
Exhausted, Reynolds landed awkwardly, blowing out her ACL, LCL, PCL and tearing her meniscus.
“Basically everything in my leg,” she said. “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.”
Gonzalez stopped practice just long enough for Reynolds to be carried off the court and placed on a cement floor just off the playing surface.
“I was in the way,” Reynolds said.
Gonzalez did not make any effort to check on the injuries to Reynolds, who was left unattended on the concrete.
“With the cockroaches,” Reynolds said.
Cockroaches?
“Yes, there were actually cockroaches crawling around me on the floor that night,” she said.It wasn’t until after the practice was completed that Reynolds received medical attention when Gonzalez and a trainer drove her to a nearby hospital.
“They were so annoyed with me that they had to put me in a car and take me to the hospital,” Reynolds said.
Crockett said she did not recall being at the practice.
Reynolds said Gonzalez didn’t treat her any better as the season progressed.
“There was emotional abuse that went with it,” Reynolds said referring to her injury. Gonzalez’s attitude “was like, ‘How dare you get hurt?’”
Crockett resigned after Iowa finished the season 6-24 overall, 1-19 in the Big Ten to take an assistant coaching position at Florida State. Crockett acknowledged she took a pay cut at Florida State. The contracts of Gonzalez and another assistant were not renewed.
Gonzalez headed to Europe.
“He worked himself right out of the States,” Reynolds said.
Many stops, similar stories
Gonzalez’s bio on the Idaho websites cites his success coaching at the club level in Europe and Japan and that 13 players who have worked with him played in the 2016 Olympic Games.
Gonzalez also frequently reminded Idaho players about how coaches “could get away” with coaching methods in Europe and Japan that were not acceptable or allowed at American universities, according to seven Idaho players.
Gonzalez, Patterson said, “always talked about the things you can say, do anything” in Europe and Japan.
“He’s threatened us with that,” Patterson continued before quoting Gonzalez. “‘There’s only one way I know to instill discipline in a team and the NCAA made that illegal, I would get fired.’”
“Physical violence. In his eyes, the way speaks to us is soft, (compared to) what he could be doing. He could be saying so much worse to try and motivate us to change. He threatens that, you know. ‘There’s only way I know to make a team be disciplined but the NCAA made that illegal, I would get fired.’ the veiled threat.”
But neither Gonzalez nor his Idaho bio mentions the year he spent coaching at American University in Washington, D.C., in 2018.
“I have never been coached by a person who made me feel so worthless and depressed. It took me several years to unpack what happened there and I can honestly say that he mentally abused me,” Shannon Webb, a former American standout wrote in a letter to Idaho officials in September. “When I found out that he got the job at University of Idaho, I honestly felt sick. No person deserves to be coached by Chris.”
When Gonzalez was hired at American University, the team was coming off five consecutive Patriot League titles and NCAA tournament appearances, including a trip to the Sweet 16. In fact, American had appeared in 15 of the previous 17 NCAA tournaments.
“Then Chris came in and everything changed,” Webb said in an interview with SCNG. “When Chris came in we were winning conference, making NCAAs. Then Chris came in and told us we had it all wrong.”
The Gonzalez way, Webb said, included “a lot of body shaming. Chris threatened to deny food to us.”
He pressured athletes to play and practice despite suffering serious injuries or concussions or pushed athletes to postpone doctor-recommended surgeries and bullied them when they didn’t, Webb said.
Gonzalez would “scream at us. ‘You’re not athletic.’ That we didn’t deserve to be on the team,” said Webb. “Volleyball went from being the highlight of my day. to being miserable going to practice every day.”
But Webb said some teammates received even harsher treatment from Gonzalez. Gonzalez especially targeted Miranda Weber, a 6-foot-11 middle blocker from Canada, Webb said.
“He was flat out cruel to her,” Webb said.
One incident in particular stands out for Webb: Gonzalez ordered the players to do a two-minute plank.
Weber, Webb said in an interview, “just couldn’t do it and Chris started screaming at her. ‘You’re stupid!’ ‘You should leave!’ She didn’t deserve to be there.
“She cried, sobbing. She was terrified by the rage directed at her.”
But Gonzalez didn’t let up with his alleged bullying of Weber, Webb said.
“He told her she was a waste of a scholarship, she shouldn’t be at the school,” Webb said.
“She was stupid. She cried in the locker room most days. It was really sad to see someone torn apart and not realize it was not their fault.”
Attempts to reach Weber were unsuccessful.
There was one other thing about Gonzalez that year at American that still stands out to Webb.
When the team traveled, Webb recalled, “he didn’t say anything to us. He just sat in the corner and looked like he didn’t want to be with us. He didn’t like to be on the bus with us. So he would drive eight hours in his car to away matches.”
American finished the season 20-13, the program’s fewest wins in nine seasons, and missed making the NCAA tournament for the first time in six years.
Webb transferred to Southern Utah where she earned All-Big Sky honors, but Gonzalez continued to haunt her.
“He was a horrible, abusive coach,” Webb said. Being coached by Gonzalez “was the most horrible feeling in my life. I had nightmares about Chris. I had nightmares that he would come coach at Southern Utah.
“I’m absolutely scarred by it.”
After a stint coaching in Japan’s top professional league, Gonzalez was hired by Gawlik in February 2022.
“Chris is one of the premier volleyball analysts in not only the country, but the entire world. Chris was highly recommended to me by Kelly Sheffield, head coach at Wisconsin, who just won a national championship,” Gawlik, a former college volleyball and basketball player and Wisconsin’s senior associate AD, said at the time of the hiring. “We are thrilled to get someone of that caliber.”
Gonzalez hired Goree and Bryan Bastuba as assistant coaches.. Goree had one year of college coaching experience. Bastuba had coached seven years at small colleges and had also worked with Gonzalez at an Ohio club.
“On Day 1, we will have one of the top training staffs in the country and our student-athletes will benefit greatly from their expertise,” Gonzalez said.
“We were trying to build it from the ashes and do something crazy,” Goree said in an interview last week.
A first impression
Initially, Idaho players said they were excited by the Gonzalez hire.
“When he arrived he gave this big hurrah how he’s this amazing coach,” Morris said. “He’s coached overseas, he’s done everything amazing and how he would be an amazing fit to the program until we actually saw and started practicing with him and that’s when we saw a lot of things change.”
In his early practices that spring, Gonzalez pushed over Hailey Pelton, a veteran setter and four-time Big Sky Conference All-Academic team selection, according to five people. One of the people confirming the incident is Bastuba.
“The only thing is maybe Chris was making a public demonstration on balance,” Bastuba said. “He was trying to show her how she had to have a strong stance so she would not be pushed over. There was nothing malicious about it.”
Idaho players and a university employee, however, disagree with Bastuba’s characterization of the encounters.
“(Gonazalez) pushed her in a bullying way,” Morris said.
Pelton declined to comment for this article.
Gonzalez continued his alleged pattern of physical and emotional abuse, bullying and body shaming during the regular season, according to six Idaho players, a person familiar with the situation, as well as reports, complaints, and emails sent to Gawlick and other Idaho officials.
That autumn Gonzalez pushed Anna Pelleur, a freshman, so hard during a practice that he also knocked her off her feet, seven players allege in interviews and according to a complaint filed with Gawlik.
“Shoved,” libero Aine Doty recalled.
Pelluer, the daughter of former University of Washington and NFL quarterback Steve Pelluer, was a regular target of Gonzalez’s alleged bullying, seven players said.
“He was very hard on Anna,” Drange said. “I remember him jumping in the drill and setting and running up and saying Anna was in his way and instead of stopping the drill he pushed her and yelled, ‘Anna, get out of the way!’
“It was weird. He was always doing weird things.”
Said an Idaho starter who also witnessed the alleged incident, “He would get so into it, that he would push her hard enough to knock her to the ground. You could have just politely asked her to get off the court or been like, ‘Guys hold on, I’m going to take over the drill real quick’ instead of putting violence on the table.
“It was absolutely unnecessary.
“He was angry at her that she couldn’t complete the drill the way he wanted her to so he felt he needed to step in and do it correctly so he just pushed her off the court.”
The incident again left players stunned.
“I remember all of us looking at each other ‘Did he seriously just push her?’” Drange said.
During a recent interview, four players on the 2023 Idaho roster when discussing the alleged Pelluer incident all said in unison they “had never had a coach do that.”
Bastuba denied that Gonzalez targeted Pelluer for bullying.
“I know there were a couple of times he did get on her,” Bastuba said referring to Gonzalez and Pelluer. “I know a couple of times he thought she wasn’t paying attention or asking the wrong question and the wrong time.”
Pelluer transferred to Seattle Pacific after the 2022 season. She did not respond to requests for comment.
“She also left because of how he treated her,” Doty said. “He finds players he can talk down to, he gets in certain players’ heads a lot more. With Anna she definitely did not have a good time, he always talked down to her, he constantly picked on her in drills, constantly kicked her out of drills, everything she would do. She was so hardworking and he didn’t care.
“I asked Anna if she would be willing to write a statement (to Gawlik). She said she didn’t want to relive anything, took her an entire semester to just get over what happened, she developed anxiety.”
Gonzalez also allegedly targeted Morris for regular bullying during the 2022 season even though she led the team in total blocks and hitting percentage, Morris, Idaho players and a person familiar with the situation said.
“Every day it felt like I was being targeted because I was the only biracial player on the team,” Morris said her voice cracking with emotion before becoming unable to speak while crying. “And 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.”
Said a starter on the 2022 and 2023 teams, “She went through a lot of racial discrimination. (Gonzalez) always telling her she should be the most athletic one.”
“Travel as the only minority on the team,” the player continued. “You would think he wouldn’t use that against her because he really liked international girls and he likes the whole minority things. For some reason, he felt it was necessary to pick on her seeing as though she should be the most athletic one ‘because of her roots. I remember him saying, she wasn’t doing very well, she was struggling in a practice, and he said, ‘Why aren’t you doing well? You should be the most athletic one out here for obvious reasons.’ Made her feel singled out. Entire season she felt singled out.”
Morris transferred to Florida International after the 2022 season.
“Chris isn’t racist,” Goree, who is Black, said referring to allegations that Gonzalez had racially discriminated against Morris. “If he was racist, why did he hire me? He didn’t have to hire me.”
Idaho ended the season 4-24 overall, 1-15 in Big Sky play, finishing in last place in the conference.
“Those girls were unable to mentally execute what Chris was telling them and showing them,” Goree said.
The 2022 team included 12 freshmen and Goree blamed the team’s losing record on the squad’s inexperience, a lack of mental toughness and sense of entitlement.
“Our first match they were peeing down their legs on the court because they were so scared,” Goree said of the players. “That’s what he had to deal with all year.”
Seven of the freshmen transferred after the 2022 season.
“It was all about playing time,” Goree said referring to the transfers. “They didn’t want to fight for their spots. They wanted it to be like club or high school where the coaches don’t know what they’re doing.”
But one of the freshmen who transferred was setter Kate Doorn, a starter for Idaho who was named Big Sky offensive player of the week during the first month of the 2022 season.
Even so, during the season Gonzalez “said to everyone that I let my team down,” Doorn was quoted as saying in a formal complaint to the school filed by multiple players. Gonzalez, said Emmy Green, a player on the 2022 team, bulled Doorn “until Kate was in tears.”
“Kate didn’t have the fire,” Goree said.
Doorn transferred to Sacramento State where she played in every one of the Hornets’ 130 sets during the 2023 season while directing the Big Sky’s top offense en route to winning the conference’s regular season title. Doorn was seventh in the Big Sky in assists per set (6.28). Idaho finished the 2023 season with 885 assists as a team. Doorn recorded 704 assists this past season all by herself.
Doorn did not respond to requests for comment.
Goree and Bastuba left the staff after the 2022 season, both citing personal reasons. They were replaced by Krišková, a native of Slovakia who had played at Wisconsin, and Logan, a native of Russia who had played at Washington and then spent the previous two seasons as a Husky graduate assistant.
The staffing change only seemed to embolden Gonzalez’s alleged bullying, five players said.
At one point during the season, Gonzalez told his players, “Plan on being miserable until November,” according to a complaint filed with the university and interviews with six players.
Gonzalez singled out a player for ridicule in front of the entire team and then said, “If she is embarrassed by this video, that is her problem not a me problem,” according to a recording of the team meeting.
He told another player, “I brought you here because I saw something, I can’t even coach you. I don’t deserve that,” according to a complaint with the university that also alleged that Gonzalez “said to a player after a loss, telling her that recruiting her was a mistake and challenged her and other players to quit.”
At one point during the 2023 season, the team captains requested a meeting with Gonzalez to address concerns about how his coaching methods were impacting players’ mental health and academics.
Gonzalez met with the players, starting the meeting by handing them a sheet of paper with nine questions including, “How come you’re so selfish?” according to the recording of the Oct. 30 meeting between the players and university officials.
“It was a completely pointless meeting,” a starter told Gawlik, Eckles and Walsh during the meeting. “He showed us right off the bat you can’t talk to us as a human being.”
But Walsh in the Oct. 30 meeting with the players seemed to defend Gonzalez’s reaction.
“Coaches are human too,” Walsh is heard saying on the recording. “He listened and he responded. Maybe that’s how he thought he needed to address it, you know what I mean?”
A frequent target
Lily Hazzard, a freshman middle blocker from Camarillo, was the most frequent target of Gonzalez’s alleged bullying during the recently completed 2023 season, six players, and a person familiar with the situation allege.
Gonzalez’s treatment of the freshman in a defensive drill during an October 2 practice left Hazzard injured to the point of not being able to play and the team emotionally shaken, six players said.
“We get into the gym, warm up, with the individual defense (drill) the coach wants us to do right or left knee slide, the partner tosses the ball to the right of the player and you get down on your right knee and you slide to get the ball up and you get back up and you do a left knee slide, go forward, double knee slide, fall on both knees to get the ball up.” a starter said. Gonzalez tells the partner to “toss it way farther away from us where we have to physically run, dig the ball up, dive on the floor, however you dive, everyone dives differently, and then he calls it a roll, you kind of barrel roll, you get back up and you run to the end line and do it all over again. About eight or nine times. Individual defenses, really, we don’t like doing it, it’s very tough on our bodies.”
It was especially hard on Hazzard, who had a history of knee problems which she and five players said Gonzalez was aware of.
Hazzard, a starter said, “had bursa sacs (problems) in her knees, doing drills. She was diving on both of her knees, in pain physically. You could see she was in pain and our assistant and Chris told her partner, ‘You’re tossing it too easy, why are you doing it so easy?’ Lily said, ‘My knees hurt, this is really hurting me to dive’ and he just grabs the ball and starts chucking it at her, at the ground to try and get her to dive back on her knees that she’s already been hurting on and he knows she was hurting on it so it wasn’t he wasn’t aware of the situation.
“He knew very well that she was in pain and repeatedly trying to get her to do the reps. She ended up bursting several more bursa sacs in her knees.”
The drill lasted, the starter said, “four or five minutes and she was physically crying. She was in a lot of pain and they were just yelling at her, ‘Get up Lilly, get up, get up!’”
At one point Hazzard told assistant coach Kriskova that she was injured and asked to modify the drill.
“That’s not my problem,” Hazzard recalled Kriskova telling her.
“It felt bullied,” a starter said recalling Gonzalez and Kriskova’s treatment of Hazzard during the drill. “(Hazzard) looked very distressed. She looked physically in pain but also emotionally she just looked wrecked.”
Hazzard said she burst two bursa sacs in her right knee, one in her left during the drill.
“My knee swelled up to the size of a softball which caused a panic attack,” she said. “I was freaked out at how strange they looked. The bruising lasted for a week.”
Her teammates noticed an even longer lasting impact on Hazzard.
“Ever since that day she has been very different, emotionally different,” the starter said. “She doesn’t even really want to speak to any of us. She’s very quiet. Keeps to herself.”
And Gonzalez continued to bully Hazzard, she and the players allege.
“I completely broke down,” she said.
She began to suffer regular anxiety attacks that would last as long as 30 minutes.
“I get very anxious,” Hazzard said. “My body freaks out and can’t control myself, crying, sobbing.”
“There’s been behavioral changes since the start of the season,” Doty said. “She was a very talkative, happy person. After the defense drills, her personality completely changed when he completely called her out in front of the whole team. She’s just really quiet now. She barely talks and that’s definitely not her personality at all. And now it’s like she doesn’t want to be anywhere. Definitely.”
Hazzard left Idaho after the semester and transferred to Ventura College.
“I’m currently dealing with mental health issues,” she said. “I transferred because I have to be careful about myself.
“I’m in a safe environment.”
Playing hurt
Gonzalez’s treatment of Hazzard is but one example of his disregard for players’ health, nine players allege in interviews and in correspondence to university officials.
Trainer Cait Brown sends an injury report every day to Gonzalez and his coaching staff that includes who is injured, which players are receiving treatment and the nature of their injuries, as well as any limitations placed on players by Brown and team physicians for playing in matches or practicing, nine players and a university employee said. For example, a player recovering from a knee injury might have limits on the number of jumps she can make in practice or on certain movements.
Gonzalez “constantly and repeatedly ignored” Brown’s injury reports, instructions and limitations on injured players, a starter said. Eight other players also verified that Gonzalez disregarded Brown’s reports, instructions and limits.
“He is completely ignoring the injury reports or just not reading them,” another current player said.
All nine players allege they have witnessed Gonzalez argue with and berate Brown for decisions she made to hold injured players out of matches or practices and place limits on them for practices.
“He has gotten upset with Cait Brown setting these limitations about how she’s making decisions without consulting him and that she needs to talk to him before she decides who can and can’t do drills, even though I got the handbook the other day and it states very clearly that Cait will function with full authority on all medical matters,” Patterson said.
“Neither coaches nor athletes make decisions whether a player should or should not practice or play. These decisions are made by the athletic trainer and/or team doctors.”
Brown declined to comment.
Gonzalez also regularly interrupts Brown when she is treating or consulting with players during practices, nine players said.
“One of his biggest things is to either just flat out ignore our trainer or ignore when players are talking to the trainer,” Patterson said. “Like if one of them has an injury, during practice if something isn’t feeling right they might try and go and talk to her, he will verbally drag them away from her, call them back into the drill so they can’t receive the medical attention they need.”
Gonzalez will tell players, Patterson said, things like, “‘I know you’re in pain but you need to do this certain movement, you need to do this.’ ‘I know you’re in pain, but do it anyways.’”
Josh Bailey, a sport biomechanics professor, was brought in to help Gonzalez analyze data from a device designed to not only help improve performance but prevent overuse injuries. The Catapult One app is a device that is attached to a vest or bra like garment that athletes wear during training or competition that tracks distance covered during a session or match, top speed, sprint distance, intensity, as well as fatigue.
Bailey, after analyzing the data and taking note of the team’s high injury rate, repeatedly made suggestions to Gonzalez to alter his training in a way to make the players less vulnerable to injury.
“(Bailey) would tell Chris something needs to change, all these injuries are the direct result of practices,” Drange said. “But nothing changed. He didn’t listen to what he said.”
Bailey declined to comment for this report.
“Josh advised Chris,” Bastuba said. “That’s all it was – advice. One of the duties you have as a coach is to make decisions.”
Gonzalez’s alleged repeated ignoring of Brown, the sports medicine staff, and Bailey are not the only alleged examples of the coach disregarding players’ safety and placing them in harm’s way.Volleyball players from their very first practice are cautioned to always make sure courts, whether in matches or practices, are clear of balls other than the one being used out of concern of a player landing on a stray ball and suffering a catastrophic injury.
Those years of warnings instantly came to mind when an angry Gonzalez stopped a drill and placed balls on either side of jumping players, according to six players, an Idaho employee and a person familiar with the practice.
“He would get very angry at us for landing near or on the other side of the net,” middle blocker Julia Dickeson said. “And we were hitting. He told us a couple of times. There were a few athletes who would land on the other side. So he stopped the drill.
“So he grabbed two balls (and said,) ‘This will make sure you guys do land on this side.’ We were kind of confused because we had been taught at such a young age that you make sure that the playing field is clear of any balls, because it could cause serious injury if you jump and land on a ball. And so we were like confused and all looked at each other like, ‘He’s not actually going to make us hit with these balls under our feet?’ And we were looking at him confused and he was like, ‘OK, let’s go, go hit a ball.’ And he had us do it for a while but all of us were kind of scared and confused. We were all just genuinely confused why he made us do that and concerned for our safety because that could cause a serious injury.
“And it wasn’t helping us skill-wise because we were so concerned about not landing on the other side.”
Said Drange “I remember seeing that and thinking, ‘What’s going on? He’s just asking for somebody to get injured.’ That was just another one of the times that he wasn’t looking to keep us safe.”
It wasn’t, however, the only Gonazalez drill that made Idaho players uncomfortable.
‘Please don’t take this the wrong way’
Focusing on jumping in another practice blocking drill, Gonzalez lifted players as they jumped in an attempt to get them to leap higher.
Again Vandal players were taken aback by Gonzalez’ actions, seven players said.
“None of us have ever experienced anything remotely like that,” a two-year starter said.
“He was trying to show us how our hips should be when we’re in mid-air, sticking our butts out in a sense,” a starter said. “So what he’ll do, stand directly behind us. And he’ll say, ‘Don’t take this out of context and the wrong way,’ and then he’ll put his hands directly above our hip bones and he’ll say ‘OK. jump.’ So when we’re jumping in mid-air he’ll either turn our hips or kind of push us backward or forward, try to angle us a little more and then we’ll come down and that’s when he comments, ‘It took a lot more to get you up there then I thought it would.’”
Another player said, “He tells us, ‘It took a lot more to get you up in the air than I thought it would.’ This is to one of our skinny, skinny players.”
“Without their consent, Gonzales grabs girls around the waist/hips to lift them in the air for a blocking drill, again without their consent,” a complaint filed with the university alleges. The events in the complaint were confirmed by six players. “Girls feel violated/uncomfortable even when he says, ‘Don’t take this out of context.’ Combined with his verbally abusive language during training, it is inappropriate to make players feel uncomfortable through touch.”
Four players were asked in an interview if Gonzalez indeed made them feel uncomfortable by touching them during the drill?
“Very much so and not to mention, he thinks it makes it OK to say, ‘Please don’t take it the wrong way,’” said a two-year starter, her three teammates chiming in in agreement.
“It is very creepy,” Drange said of Gonzalez lifting the players. “I remember thinking what’s the purpose of that?’”
The coach’s comments, players allege, are part of Gonzalez’ almost daily body shaming and comments about their weight.
Gonzalez has told players that their bodies resemble “linebackers,” that they’re overweight or discussed the size and shape of their buttocks, nine players, a university employee and a person familiar with the situation allege in interviews and correspondence with Gawlik and university officials.
“He said that last year to one of the girls who is gone, ‘You’re built like a linebacker’ and critiqued the entire team for not jumping high enough because we were too heavy,” a starter said. “He continues to call us overweight.”
“Shaped like linebackers, too much muscle,” Drange said. “There were always comments (from Gonzalez) about weight and food.”
Gonzalez told a player she played differently because she had a “strong butt” and also told the team, “I wanted your bodies to be a certain way and I wasn’t seeing any change, so I needed to make a change,” according to a complaint filed with the university.
Gonzalez has called a current player “bottom heavy,” according to five players.
“I had never heard that term before,” said the player about whom the comment was made. “That’s not a compliment to me in any way shape or form. It made me more angry than sad.
“It makes me self-conscious. Blames injury on that I don’t jump right or he blames it on that I’m too heavy of a jumper, he thinks that I’m too heavy that when I come down it’s more impact on my knee.”
Bastuba tried to explain Gonzalez’ comment.
“It means she doesn’t stay in the air very long,” he said. “It’s like saying someone is slow footed.”
The player Gonzalez said was “bottom heavy,” however, has the second highest recorded vertical leap on the team, according to four players.
Outside hitter Taylor Brickey recalled a conversation Gonzalez had with her and Doorn during a recruiting trip. Gonzalez told Brickey, she said, “You have my ideal volleyball player’s body type, long hamstrings, narrow hips and broad shoulders. Kate was sitting there like, ‘I don’t have the ideal body type?’”
Gonzalez even made players uncomfortable during the rare occasions he complimented them, according to four players and complaints filed with the university.
“We’ll get a good pass or good hit or something he feels good about, he looks at us and says ‘good girl,’” a player said. “It’s really uncomfortable.
“In this day and age when you call someone good girl it’s for one sexual and two makes you feel like an animal. There was one player last year who felt really uncomfortable about it and we mentioned it to him. ‘We don’t like it, it makes us feel uncomfortable.’ And he said, ‘Well I’ve said it for years. I don’t know what the problem is.’ And he continues to do it. And he still does it.”
Playing hungry
The body shaming comments, players said, reflect Gonzalez’s obsession with weight and food, a preoccupation that has regularly left players feeling like they’re starving throughout their days including during matches and practices. Gonzalez, nine players allege, has refused to feed them after losses or cross country flights, is constantly monitoring their food intake and asked the sports medicine staff about specific players’ weight.
“He asked the trainer to see my weight because he thought I gained the freshman 15 (pounds) during the summer,” a starter said.
She hadn’t.
The first thing Idaho players do when they check into a hotel during road trips is look for side doors or back exits, any opening where their parents can sneak food into them without getting caught by Gonzalez and his assistants.
“We’d try to find side doors. We’d try to spot them even before we got to our room so the parents could smuggle food in,” Morris said. “One of the girls would be downstairs and text one of the girls, the parents are here. One at a time (the players would go downstairs). Different exits of the hotel. We would look around and go and get the food.”
When the team would have layovers waiting for connecting flights in Seattle or Denver, players would one by one or in small groups sneak off to other terminals to eat while other players kept an eye out for Gonzalez or his assistants.
“We had to find ways to sneak in and out of hotels to get things, sneak in and out of restaurants too,” a two-year starter said.
The subterfuge, nine players said, was necessary because of what was at stake.
Players weren’t getting enough calories with the food Gonzalez was providing them or allowing them to eat.
“Chris would judge us for our bodies. It was not healthy,” Morris said. “He was secretly dieting us right in front of our faces.”
But if the players were caught receiving food from their family or friends or purchasing food at an airport or through a delivery service to the hotel, there could be serious consequences.
“We were afraid we would be benched or kicked off the team, which that actually happened,” Morris said.
During a stop at the Denver airport a starter was caught by the coaches after she bought a calzone and was benched for the next match because of her purchase, according to six players and a complaint filed with the university.
“Everything was closed,” Morris said, referring to the food counter where the player bought the calzone. “That was the only thing that was open.”
Bastuba said the player was disciplined for violating team rules, but declined to elaborate.
On another occasion, a coach confiscated a bag of food a parent had left for her daughter at a hotel front desk during a road trip to a Big Sky school.
There were also trips where Gonzalez simply refused to provide meals to the team, according to nine players and complaints filed with the school.
One of those trips was to a tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, in September 2022. Players arose between 2:30 and 3 a.m. PDT on September 7 in order to arrive by 4:30 a.m. at the Pullman-Moscow Airport near Washington State University, 10 minutes from the Moscow campus, according to a team itinerary.
After connecting to flights at the Seattle-Tacoma and Dallas-Fort Worth airports, the team checked into their hotel in Jacksonville at 9:45 p.m. EDT, having spent more than 15 hours in transit. Gonzalez told the players they would not be provided dinner and instructed them to eat from their snack bag instead. The snack bag, intended for players to eat between matches during tournaments or after games or practices, included items like apple sauce, beef jerky, a granola bar and water that in total amounted to roughly 500 calories.Division I women’s volleyball players require at least 3,800 calories on match and practice days, according to multiple sources.
Drange ordered Chipotle through DoorDash only to get caught by Bastuba returning to her room with the order.
“It’s not like I got junk food and we didn’t get dinner,” she said in an interview.
“Did you get that for yourself?” Bastuba asked her, Drange recalled.
“Yes, I was hungry,” she replied.
“You need to ask permission next time,” Bastuba continued, according to Drange. “Because you’re undermining our plans. We think of every meal.”
Bastuba confirmed the incident but disputed that he told Drange she needed to ask for permission.
“I found the athlete with DoorDash and we had a discussion and I said let us know next time and we can change the food plan,” he said.
But Idaho players said Bastuba’s response was disingenuous at best.
“Any time we would ask (Gonzalez) about food he would get upset with us,” Hazzard said. “He would tell us it was selfish to complain about food.”
The day after arriving in Florida the team’s lunch was a soup and salad bar at Ruby Tuesday’s, according to interviews and the itinerary. Gonzalez and his assistants closely monitored what items players put on their salads, according to four players.
“Whenever we did eat there were instances where the coaches would judge us while we were eating,” Morris said. “We went to a place and I was sitting next to the coaches and they were talking about one of the players and how our habits at the table, eating, acting at the table. Just judging us in front of us.
“(Gonzalez) 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 and if the waiter came to the table and asked if we wanted anything else, we would immediately shake our heads no. Like no was just something we would constantly do.
“Anytime we ordered something it either had to be small or just barely enough to get us past six hours of game play. I remember he fed us six hours before a game and that was the only thing that we ate.”
Gonzalez and coaches removed cookies and chips from box lunches on trips, according to four players. Chips and salsa were not allowed on players’ tables at Mexican restaurants.Drange recalled bread being placed on the restaurant table during a team dinner.
“Every time we took a piece of bread Chris would glare down the table at us,” she said.
There were also times when the university did not provide players with enough per diem to pay for adequate airport meals.
“We get about $14 for each airport meal, we end up spending $30 feeding ourselves,” a starter said. “We get to the airport after waking up at 6 (a.m.), at about 10:30 (a.m.) need to get food to hold us until end of practice 6:30 (p.m.)”
“Like we honestly barely got nutritious food all of last year,” Doty said. “We really did not get fed well whatsoever. Honestly were always starving, like during games, I was always so hungry and everyone else was too because. He would only allow us such small portions.”
The lack of nutrition impacted the team’s performance, nine players said.
All nine players recalled being lightheaded during matches or practices.
“There were times where after warm-ups we would all be dizzy from not getting enough nutrition,” Drange said.
“I was always lightheaded,” Doty said. “Always starving. Starving every single day.”
Patterson recalled an incident during a practice the day before a late-season match at Portland State.
“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. So I was just taking deep breaths, my heart, I could see it beating through my jersey and it went real fast,” Patterson said. “That happens especially on travel trips, all of a sudden the tunnel vision and feeling like I might pass out.”
At one point during the 2022 season, Pelton and outside hitter Allison Munday met with a university sports performance expert about nutrition. During the meeting the professor broke down crying in frustration at the players’ plight, according to players..
“The girls requested to meet with me to ask a few questions regarding nutrition and travel meals,” the professor said. “They were very upset about not feeling heard and judged by their coaching staff around food choices. I too was emotional seeing how frustrated and worried they seemed especially knowing there wasn’t much I could do to help.”
Drange said she lost 15 pounds in two months during the 2022 season. Another player said she lost nearly 20 pounds in less than two months in 2023.
“This season I can definitely notice a loss in muscle more so than anything else,” Brickey said.
Doty recalled an encounter with Gawlik.
“This year even the athletic director commented on my weight loss,” Doty said, “and told me I looked very skinny and asked if I was working out?”
Goree dismissed the players’ complaints about food.
“I always had leftover food,” she said. “Shoot it was ridiculous.
“If they had food issues, if they were hungry they should have gone to Chris or me and we would have taken care of them.”
Current and former players said they were not surprised by Goree’s comments.
“I’m sure she did have leftover food,” a current starter said. “But she never offered it to us.
“Why didn’t we ask? We didn’t ask because we were beyond scared of getting our head bitten off by Chris for saying we’re hungry.”
Pride in the school
When Idaho players are asked to describe their relationship with Gonzalez or his with the team they all invariably recall a moment during the 2022 season. Morris was boarding a plane next to Gonzalez.
A woman on the flight asked the coach if Morris was his player?
“And he said, ‘No.’” Brickey said echoing similar statements by six other players.
“It seems like he doesn’t know how to interact with us in any way,” Doty said. “Last year he wouldn’t ever sit with us. He’s not with us on travel trips. He’s always off in his own little world.”
And in Gonzalez’s world, Vandal players said, there’s no room for them.
“When we’re in airports,” a current starter said, “he arrives at the airport by himself. Then he finds a spot on the opposite side of the small Pullman airport from us and then he gets on the plane and often times he flies first class. Doesn’t sit with the rest of the coaches and us and then he gets off the plane and goes straight to his Delta lounge, his Alaska lounge and goes off by himself. So he never talks to us.
“He wears this Nike puffer jacket, turned it inside out so it only showed a simple Nike logo on his left chest but you flip it inside out you don’t see the big Idaho logo and it says women’s volleyball on it and he wears it around everywhere we go inside out.”
“It just makes us feel offended, like you don’t want to associate with us at all.”
Indeed the Nike jacket turned inside out, Idaho players said, is emblematic of Gonzalez’s tenure at the university and his feelings toward them.
“One of the thing he talks about is how it seems like we have no pride in the program and how our program is not something to be proud of,” Patterson said. “He really especially early in the season, he really honed in on the point that we have nothing to be proud of. We’re not proud of the program. We’re not proud of the school. And something that really makes the University of Idaho special, is that it’s a really tight-knit community. If people see us wear the Vandal logo somewhere, not in Moscow, wherever we travel, people ask about it, ‘Oh, I know someone who went here.’ ‘I went here. It’s a great school.’ It’s a super community. It’s a big community school and once you go to the University of Idaho, it’s important for the rest of your life.
“And the fact that he pounds in the point to us that we have no pride in the university and goes around hiding from the university or hiding that he is part of it. He is not leading, he is not showing that we have anything to be proud of.”
RELATED
Idaho expands investigation of volleyball coach Chris Gonzalez
Idaho volleyball players ask school to place Chris Gonzalez on leave
Idaho AD, president warned about Chris Gonzalez’s alleged abuse in December 2022
Idaho weighing whether to allow players to opt out of practices with Chris Gonzalez
Idaho women’s volleyball players can opt out of practices with Chris Gonzalez
