I have been playing soccer since I was four years old. By a certain age, I knew the sport better than I could read or write. When I stepped over the solid white line onto the rectangular soccer field and felt the grass beneath my cleats while moving my pink and blue soccer ball across the field, I felt like this was what I was meant to be doing with my life.
It was moments like those that deepened my love for the game.
That’s how it should be. A love for the beautiful game- an unexplainable feeling that puts you at ease when you play it. It’s as if time stands still and you are four years old again, doing what you love.
Unfortunately, coaches can influence players and either make or break their love for the sport. If you're an athlete or someone passionate about something, you can empathize with me. As a young player, I had one dream: to play Division I soccer.
In high school, when I started receiving recruitment offers from colleges, I knew that my dream was going to come true. One of the schools that caught my attention was a beautiful Division I school in High Point, North Carolina called "High Point University." During my recruiting visit, I was welcomed by a friendly security guard who directed me and my mom to a black sign with orange letters that said, "Welcome, Bri Davis." Brandi Fontaine, the former head soccer coach of HPU, greeted us as soon as we stepped out of the car and explained to us that she would be giving us a tour of the school on a golf cart. As we crossed the campus, I heard classical music, visited kiosks that served different snacks and saw plenty of fountains. It felt like a vacation getaway more than a college. The coaches made HPU sound like a dream, the girls on the team were friendly and gave a familial feeling and the coaches assured my mom that they would take care of not just my physical but also my mental health. It was all anyone could ever ask for when getting recruited. As we rode back to the coaches' offices, I looked at my mom and knew that HPU would be my home.
However, the thing about dreams is that one day you wake up and you realize they’re not at all what you thought they were. As soon as my mom left me at HPU to begin my freshman year I would soon understand the "real" coaches that recruited me.
Being a freshman on a team in the middle of a global pandemic is uncanny. I was a part of a recruiting class of 11. I got extremely close to most of the girls in my class. We were together 24/7. After all, we couldn't be around anyone else because our coaches and trainers feared we would catch COVID-19 and have to isolate for several days. This went on into the spring until we began conference games.
It was the night before our first spring game when Brandi walked up to me and told me that some of the other girls and I could not be in the locker room before the game, "as a precautionary COVID-19 measure."
I was immediately confused, we had been in the locker room all of the fall during training sessions and were completely fine. It seemed as if she was trying to exclude us from the team. Before each game, I had to get dressed in my car with some of the other girls and then run out of my car to catch up with the "team" before they made it down to the field for starting lineups.
After talking with other teams at HPU (men's soccer, women's lacrosse, etc) who had the same size locker rooms as us and with more people on their team, they explained to me that they thought it was crazy she was making us actually change and get ready in our cars. It was as if she was treating us as club players and not scholarship athletes.
After one of the games, I went to Brandi and explained how changing in our cars made us feel excluded from the team. She offered a solution, putting our lockers in the showers.
There were seven freshmen, including me who had their chairs, and a piece of tape above "their locker" with their number on it, in their individual shower.
It was extremely humiliating and embarrassing. During halftime when the coaches would come to talk to the team, I along with the six other girls would sit in the dark in the showers listening to the conversation that was going on in the room next to us.
This coupled with racially insensitive comments the coaches would consistently make about my hair (as one of only two black girls on the team) saying things such as, "Is that your real hair?", "Can I touch your hair?", "Wow, Bri when your hair is straight it looks cleaner." Added to my humiliation and uncomfortableness in front of my teammates.
To make matters worse when we would have individual meetings they would try and invade your personal life saying things such as, "We want to be able to better understand you." (while speaking in a condescending tone) Knowing that they were only trying to find ways to get into your head and make you question your worth not only as a soccer player but as a person.
There were plenty of girls who quit that year and the year after because of mental and verbal abuse from our coaches. However, no one ever looked into it because we were the Big South Champions each year.
Why look into a team that's winning? Everything must be going well. Which couldn't have been further from the truth.
During my sophomore year, one of the coaches, Associate Head Coach Chris Fox, who created the mentally and verbally abusive atmosphere was let go. Although Brandi tried to acknowledge that she was sorry and that she wanted to do better for the team, it felt as if it was too late.
My recruiting class of 11 had dwindled to a class of three. Most of the girls who quit never played soccer again.
I feel as though HPU athletics failed the women's soccer team. There were numerous times when girls on the team spoke with the athletic director who promised that HPU was going to look into the issue, which never happened. As athletes and young girls who fell in love with the beautiful game, we deserved more and better than what we received. Coaches shouldn't be the reason someone stops loving their sport.
If I had to do it all again not only would I not join the HPU women's soccer team, but I would advise that you didn't either.
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