This is just sad.
Y! SPORTS
Y! SPORTS
• When one player, who had pitched a total of three innings all season, asked to have off one weekend to spend a last weekend with her Marine husband before he shipped out for a tour of Afghanistan, Smith allegedly replied, "You’re needed here Friday and Saturday. As long as the other pitchers aren’t hurt, maybe you can go home early Sunday. But I’m not going to look favorably upon this."
• Two sophomore players were given the opportunity to make a presentation to Johnson & Johnson as part of their classwork at the Business School, but would have to miss a team trip to San Diego. Smith reportedly told the rest of the team that the sophomores, non-starters, were "choosing that team over this team," and added that if they missed that trip, they would be suspended for all other away trips. (She later relented.)
• Smith may have capriciously cut a player for missing games to attend class, after initially telling the players that skipping games was acceptable. One player claimed to have missed 20 classes in the spring semester alone because of softball commitments.
• Players charged that Smith exceeded the NCAA's practice limit of 20 hours per week by making players arrive 15 minutes early. Smith also allegedly ordered a player to do the team's laundry at 1 a.m. while on a road trip at a Jacksonville, Fla. Holiday Inn. And Smith apparently at least once divided the team into workout groups with names such as "aborted fetuses" and "booze bags."
• Former coach Ray Vander May was told when he was fired in 2012 that the school would honor the scholarship commitments made to his recruits, and now has been told that Smith will not be honoring those scholarships. He refused to take extra severance pay in return for signing a confidentiality agreement.