On Tuesday, July 5th, Grambling State announced that they fired new volleyball head coach Chelsey Lucas after investigating her actions towards the volleyball players. Her actions included canceling scholarships, kicking players off the team, and conducting practices consisting of a majority of punishment-related exercises. Ultimately, she kicked out all 19 volleyball team players with initial support from the athletic department at Grambling State, causing anger in players, parents, and alums. Her actions are most likely due to a grudge with the volleyball players after Grambling State beat her old team at Arkansas Pine Bluff and mistakenly took the loss personally.
Chelsey Lucas was hired on February 14th this year after the previous coach of the volleyball team, Demetria Keys-Johnson, had to step down in December to take another job at the university. Last season, Grambling State had a score of 11-17, and Chelsey Lucas’s team had a score of 18-15.
The conflict started when Grambling State beat Arkansas Pine Bluff last season at home, and their winning chant included vulgar language. “When we played them at home, and we beat them, our school has like this chant, but at the end of the chant, you say, like, the B-word. I guess she thought I was calling them B-words, but, like, the whole school says it. They say it at basketball games and football games. It’s nothing personal,” Sheila Borders, a senior on the volleyball team, explained. Lucas obviously had not forgotten the incident because when she first met the volleyball players, she said, “I bet you didn’t expect to see me again. I bet y’all will think twice about who y’all call a b—-.”
The Monroe News Star wrote that players reported the new coach held three practices in the next few weeks and made them do many punishment exercises like excessive running and not many volleyball skill exercises.
Furthermore, Lucas had chosen not to renew all 12 players’ scholarships. Although she did offer four players to stay on the team as walk-ons, they all refused. The coach informed the seven walk-on players they were being dropped. The sudden drops caused players to be in a difficult situation because it was the offseason. Maurisa Harris, a junior, expressed, “[Lucas] said that we weren’t able to practice much, which we weren’t, and she said based off of that she was not able to renew my scholarship, so I didn’t really get any time to show what I could do. When I was in there and she told me, my heart completely broke. … I didn’t cry in there, but I did when I left, and it just hurts really bad, the fact that it was snatched away so fast.”
The angry players and parents formed a petition in objection to the new coach and the school. They successfully got Grambling State to start a private investigation regarding the actions of Lucas and the athletic program.
Lucas later expressed after being fired that the school and the athletic director Trayvean Scott supported her dropping the whole roster and that it wasn’t just herself. In fact, the administration had told her not to say anything about the situation.
Sheila Border’s mom had done some research because she had heard that Lucas’s old team players were going to transfer to Grambling State. The mom Tasha Bryce said, “The girls know the girls at UAPB. They’re in the same circle of sport. So they were told [by the UAPB players] that they were going to enter the transfer portal, and then they were going to come over. Not going to lie, I fact-checked. . . . Sure enough, they were all there.” Travyean Scott stated, “Just as the transfer portal empowers student-athletes, our coaches are also empowered to make the decisions they deem necessary to advance their programs.”
Lucas even claimed that the athletic director Scott had told her to “get rid of ’em all.” She said, “The narrative of this team, even when I came in, from the administration, [was] that this was a bad character team. That’s what I was getting, but at the same time, I wanted my administration to give me a fair chance to make sure I go in and be able to be the coach for them and evaluate and assess these young ladies on and off the court.”
In the end, Scott resolved the situation in a statement, “As we move forward in this transition and commence a national search for the next coach, all volleyball student-athletes who received scholarships for the 2022-23 academic year will keep their scholarships and remain on the team.”
Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/grambling-state-volleyball-coach-fired/
Chelsey Lucas was hired on February 14th this year after the previous coach of the volleyball team, Demetria Keys-Johnson, had to step down in December to take another job at the university. Last season, Grambling State had a score of 11-17, and Chelsey Lucas’s team had a score of 18-15.
The conflict started when Grambling State beat Arkansas Pine Bluff last season at home, and their winning chant included vulgar language. “When we played them at home, and we beat them, our school has like this chant, but at the end of the chant, you say, like, the B-word. I guess she thought I was calling them B-words, but, like, the whole school says it. They say it at basketball games and football games. It’s nothing personal,” Sheila Borders, a senior on the volleyball team, explained. Lucas obviously had not forgotten the incident because when she first met the volleyball players, she said, “I bet you didn’t expect to see me again. I bet y’all will think twice about who y’all call a b—-.”
The Monroe News Star wrote that players reported the new coach held three practices in the next few weeks and made them do many punishment exercises like excessive running and not many volleyball skill exercises.
Furthermore, Lucas had chosen not to renew all 12 players’ scholarships. Although she did offer four players to stay on the team as walk-ons, they all refused. The coach informed the seven walk-on players they were being dropped. The sudden drops caused players to be in a difficult situation because it was the offseason. Maurisa Harris, a junior, expressed, “[Lucas] said that we weren’t able to practice much, which we weren’t, and she said based off of that she was not able to renew my scholarship, so I didn’t really get any time to show what I could do. When I was in there and she told me, my heart completely broke. … I didn’t cry in there, but I did when I left, and it just hurts really bad, the fact that it was snatched away so fast.”
The angry players and parents formed a petition in objection to the new coach and the school. They successfully got Grambling State to start a private investigation regarding the actions of Lucas and the athletic program.
Lucas later expressed after being fired that the school and the athletic director Trayvean Scott supported her dropping the whole roster and that it wasn’t just herself. In fact, the administration had told her not to say anything about the situation.
Sheila Border’s mom had done some research because she had heard that Lucas’s old team players were going to transfer to Grambling State. The mom Tasha Bryce said, “The girls know the girls at UAPB. They’re in the same circle of sport. So they were told [by the UAPB players] that they were going to enter the transfer portal, and then they were going to come over. Not going to lie, I fact-checked. . . . Sure enough, they were all there.” Travyean Scott stated, “Just as the transfer portal empowers student-athletes, our coaches are also empowered to make the decisions they deem necessary to advance their programs.”
Lucas even claimed that the athletic director Scott had told her to “get rid of ’em all.” She said, “The narrative of this team, even when I came in, from the administration, [was] that this was a bad character team. That’s what I was getting, but at the same time, I wanted my administration to give me a fair chance to make sure I go in and be able to be the coach for them and evaluate and assess these young ladies on and off the court.”
In the end, Scott resolved the situation in a statement, “As we move forward in this transition and commence a national search for the next coach, all volleyball student-athletes who received scholarships for the 2022-23 academic year will keep their scholarships and remain on the team.”
Sources: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/grambling-state-volleyball-coach-fired/
