Oregon State coach LaVonda Wagner built culture on fear and intimidation, sources say

Doug Beghtel/The OregonianIn five seasons as Oregon State women’s basketball coach, LaVonda Wagner has a record of 68-85. Her best season, 2008-09, was highlighted by 20 wins. Her worst, 2009-10, had 20 losses, including 17 in a row. Prompted by a wave of player departures and allegations of mistreatment, the university has launched an independent review of the coach and her program. It is expected to conclude next week.

CORVALLIS -- Oregon State women's basketball coach

has privately created a culture dominated by fear and intimidation over five seasons, a pattern that didn't burst into public view until a rash of player defections this spring left her with a roster of four, an incomplete staff and once-fawning boosters questioning whether Wagner should be retained.

Eight former players and four of their mothers say the coach aims to control players' lives, and puts the well-being of the women on her team at risk. They say Wagner, 45, pressures athletes to play through serious injuries, threw a chair during a locker room tirade, ordered players to attend Weight Watchers sessions and once was kicked off a plane in front of her team after refusing to hang up her cell phone. One mother says that her "demoralized" daughter later sought counseling after leaving Oregon State because Wagner inflicted such "mental damage."

Wagner has declined multiple requests in writing and over the phone to respond to specific allegations.

OSU athletic director

Bob De Carolis' statement from April 21

OSU athletic director Bob De Carolis' April 21 statement regarding the Beavers women's basketball program:

We have received inquiries recently about the OSU Women's Basketball program, based on concerns about the transfer requests from several players.

When students transfer out of programs, you are always concerned. Sometimes the concern is for the student and the challenges he or she is personally facing. Sometimes it is for the program itself. But as you can imagine, each student who is faced with this major decision to stay or transfer is feeling pressures from many areas. You can never make assumptions or jump to conclusions without further inspection. At the end of the year, all teams undergo a review and I want to assure you that we are in that process right now with regard to women's basketball. I do want to assure all fans, students, faculty, staff, boosters and friends, that I am aware of your concerns and I am examining the status of the program and the welfare of our students.

Late Friday, athletic director

confirmed that the university has hired an outside consultant to review the program and expects that process to end late this week.

"We're doing the due diligence to find out what is fact and what is fiction," De Carolis says, explaining the review would give players, assistants and support staff from the 2009-10 season a chance to speak confidentially about their experience in Wagner's program. "It is taking longer than we thought, but we're very close to completing the process."

In response to specific allegations, De Carolis said he was not aware of the chair-throwing incident until notified by The Oregonian; he said Wagner told him about the plane incident shortly after it happened. He declined to comment further on specific allegations.

Fiery basketball coaches are as old as the sport itself, and many have pushed the limits of appropriateness while pushing their players -- leading to complaints and sometimes transfers. Yet few programs see as many players leave in as short a period as has Oregon State.

At least 23 people -- including 15 players, four assistant coaches and four support staffers -- have exited Wagner's program in the past four seasons. Players and their families say university officials did not respond to years of complaints, but when it was announced that four players were leaving within six days, De Carolis said he felt his hand was forced.

He launched the review April 21.

A promising hire

It appeared to be a coup when De Carolis hired Wagner in April 2005.

As an assistant coach hailed for recruiting expertise, she had helped build

into a regular national title contender. Wagner signed three top-five recruiting classes in three years at the Durham, N.C., school and before that one at

, where she was an assistant for eight years.

Oregon State initially signed Wagner to a five-year contract worth more than $300,000 guaranteed this year. OSU officials have since granted her extensions through 2013, raising her salary to $425,000 guaranteed -- more than $500,000 if she hits performance bonuses -- in the season that ends that year. If Wagner were fired now, her contract would require her to be paid nearly $1.2 million -- a large sum in an athletic department that ran a $5.9 million deficit in 2008-09.

When she arrived in Corvallis, Wagner brought charisma and hope, with talk of renewing respect for a program that had not been to the NCAA Tournament since 1996.

"When she was hired ... I felt the same way as I've read and heard other people felt about her -- they were very impressed," says Vicki Maxon, who has been a women's basketball booster for 27 years but no longer backs Wagner, whose record is 68-85.

Beavers departures in

the LaVonda Wagner era

2007

Judie

Lomax

Jasmine

Smith

Patrick Harrington, assistant coach

2008

Viki

Wohlers

Whitney

Champlin

Antoinette

Reed

Doshia Woods,

assistant coach

Scott Creighton,

assistant coach

2009

Alex

Mitchell

Eboni

Sadler

Brittany

Eskridge

2010

Talisa

Rhea

Tayler

Champion

Kassandra McAlister

Kate

Lanz

Kirsten

Tilleman

Amaya Gastaminza

Eisha

Sheppard

Kellee Barney, assistant coach

Former Duke coach

, now at Texas, and former Illinois coach

, praise the professionalism and work ethic Wagner demonstrated as an assistant for their respective programs. The nationally prominent figures in women's basketball say Wagner's treatment of players never was a concern.

At Oregon State, the players, parents and boosters this newspaper spoke with all agree that Wagner is charismatic and warm in public. But behind closed doors, they say, her demeanor changes.

"I gotta give her credit because she sells it -- she sold every single person on (OSU), says Alex Mitchell, who was one of Wagner's top recruits and played two years before transferring after the 2008-09 season. "She really turns on something and it seems really genuine. When you get there it's like this total switch. It's weird because the way you see it from a distance, that's not even how she is."

To Amaya Gastaminza, who spent a disappointing and injury-filled seven months on the team before returning to her home in Pamplona, Spain, the issues run deeper.

"I've had tough coaches, but I respected them and didn't have any fear of retaliation," she says. "What I noticed was a lack of humanity. It appeared to me on many occasions that she was against the players, and it just didn't make any sense."

Concerns over health

When Greg and Debra Champlin sent their daughter, Whitney, to Oregon State in 2006, they say they were charmed by Wagner's praise of Whitney as a player, and her pitch that the Beavers would be the best fit for the 18-year-old from Olympia.

Today, Debra Champlin says her daughter had to receive counseling because of what she described as the "mental damage" and embarrassment Wagner inflicted on Whitney during her two seasons in Corvallis. Among the examples she cites are times in which Wagner yelled in her daughter's face, while surrounded by teammates, that she was "not even good enough to be a practice player."

Whitney Champlin would not discuss the matter, but her mother says the way she shut down whenever they would ask about the team concerned her and her husband.

"It was so, so secretive," Debra Champlin says. "Both my husband and I (worried) when we couldn't get Whitney to talk to us."

It was only after Whitney Champlin transferred to Southern Illinois in spring 2008 that the Champlins came to believe things had gone terribly wrong in Corvallis.

"It wasn't our daughter," Debra Champlin says, "for two years."

The physical health of OSU players also has been at issue under Wagner.

Had she not transferred to North Carolina A&T, Mitchell says, Wagner told her she would be required to go on Weight Watchers. Mary Mayfield, the mother of player Kassandra McAlister, said that McAlister and two other players were all told they had to go on Weight Watchers and pay for it themselves starting last summer. Mayfield says Wagner told her daughter, who then weighed 165 pounds, she was overweight and needed the dieting program to get in shape. McAlister left this offseason and plans to transfer to UC-Irvine.

"The way it was approached was completely wrong," Mayfield says. "It's sending the wrong message. That's how girls have weight issues like bulimia and anorexia. I kept trying to reinforce to (Kassandra) that she's not overweight. I was worried some of the girls might take it to heart; I thought it was important that the girls don't buy into the idea that they're fat."

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Mayfield and others say Clete McLeod, the OSU strength and conditioning coach, whom officials would not make available for comment, did not think players should participate in such a weight-loss program.

It wasn't the only time Wagner pushed her players in ways they objected to.

During a team workout on campus in June 2009, McAlister was knocked in the head and, at the urging of her mother, eventually went to the emergency room after she started to experience headaches and nausea. Mayfield says that doctors diagnosed McAlister with a concussion. Athletic department policy requires players with concussions to have no physical activity for at least a week, followed by one day with no symptoms. Mayfield says Wagner knew her daughter's diagnosis but still chastised McAlister for going to the ER and downplayed the injury as "a bump on the head."

Furthermore, Wagner told McAlister in a text message shared with a reporter for this story that the player couldn't "afford" to miss a week of conditioning drills.

Eboni Sadler, who dealt with shoulder injuries in her 11 months at OSU before transferring last June to Azusa Pacific, says she was pushed to play when hurt.

"She kept saying it (the injury) was a mental block in my head," Sadler says, "that there was something wrong with me (my toughness)."

Sadler says Wagner was so convinced something was wrong that the coach made an appointment and had a trainer drive her to a mental-health therapist. Sadler says she didn't want to go and attended only one session.

Gastaminza recalls how Wagner was once dismissive of a player who fell and injured an ankle, disregarding her pleas for help. "(Wagner) completely ignored her," Gastaminza says, "as if she didn't exist."

The next day, Gastaminza says, "instead of taking her (the player) off the court, she (Wagner) made her run laps around the track."

With such battered morale, players were careful about where they discussed the coach's treatment.

"In the locker room it was off-limits," Gastaminza says, "because of fear that she would find out someone was talking about her."

"A bully"

Ashley Allen, who played two years at Oregon State after transferring from the University of Oregon, describes Wagner as "a bully" with a short fuse.

During the talk at halftime at Washington on Feb. 17, 2008, Allen and Mitchell say Wagner became so irate she threw a chair across the locker room that, while not directed at a player, nearly struck one.

"I wouldn't say she put her hands on people," Allen says, "but there were times in practice she'd want you to do something and she'd grab your jersey and yank you in an unnecessary way."

Away from the court, Wagner does not allow players to talk with opponents at the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament and insists that they stay in their rooms for all but essential outings during off-time on road trips.

"My freshman year we went to Hawaii and we never touched the beach," Mitchell says. "And we were there for a good four days -- and one day we didn't even play."

For Mitchell, the breaking point in deciding to transfer came in December of her sophomore season, when she says Wagner accused her of throwing games.

Wagner's issues have played out beyond the confines of the team, too.

Oregon State travel documents obtained through a public records request show that the Beavers were to fly directly from Los Angeles to Portland on Jan. 4, 2009, after playing at USC. Records show that Wagner checked a bag on the Portland-bound flight, then had to check her bag instead onto a flight to San Francisco. Mitchell says and De Carolis confirms that Wagner was escorted off the plane after refusing to turn off her cell phone before takeoff, which was scheduled for 8:04 p.m.

Sgt. Belinda Nettles with Los Angeles Airport Police says officers responded to a dispute involving a flight attendant and a female passenger around 8:20 p.m. that required an aircraft to return to the gate for officers to investigate. In the end, Nettles says, the matter was disposed of as a business dispute.

As a result, Oregon State records show, Wagner wound up flying that night to San Francisco, where she rung up a $90 cab fare to get to a hotel in Oakland, which she checked into after 1 a.m. and stayed the night before being able to return to Corvallis. In total, Oregon State records show extra billings of more than $300 related to the cell phone incident.

Overall, Allen said the environment under Wagner was so bad she couldn't bring herself to sell the program to recruits and would try to stay away when they came to visit.

She didn't, she says, want to lie to them.

Concerns long ignored

Although De Carolis is evaluating the program, as recently as the end of this regular season he said publicly of Wagner, "She's our coach, and we back her."

That statement -- despite what players and families say were repeated warnings that something was amiss -- has left many seething.

"We would go and tell different people and they would say, 'Oh, it's not gonna get back to her (Wagner),'" Mitchell says of conversations with administrators below De Carolis. "Then the next day we're having a meeting and (she's) yelling at us, saying people are going back and saying untruthful and hurtful things about her.

"Every time we went to someone, nothing got done."

Three parents say they tried repeatedly to contact De Carolis about what was going on in the program but got no response.

In an e-mail dated Feb. 22, 2010, Mayfield says she wrote De Carolis to say she was "very concerned about the mental state of all the girls on the team." Mayfield says De Carolis never responded.

Erica Sadler, Eboni's mother, says she also tried to contact De Carolis with e-mails and phone calls over a number of months, only to be ignored.

Debra Champlin wrote three letters -- one to Wagner, one to De Carolis and one to

-- expressing her concern about the state of the program and the way players were being treated. In the letter to Ray on May 13, 2008, she wrote, "Since summer of 2006 Whitney has watched 4 of her teammates, 3 of her coaches and a much loved athletic trainer leave the OSU Women's Basketball Program. What is truly going on in this program?" Champlin never got a response.

De Carolis says complaints about the athletic program are delegated to associate athletic directors Marianne Vydra or Todd Stansbury, depending on the sport involved. De Carolis says he "feels good about the communication" that went on within the administration, and stressed that he, Vydra and Stansbury have an open-door policy for athletes. As far as correspondence to the president's office, De Carolis says Ray passes it on to him. While De Carolis does not recall responding to Mayfield's e-mail in particular, he says he eventually spoke with McAlister and that conversation prompted him to act.

But that's little solace for the players and their families who dealt with Wagner.

"When an adult is placed in such a powerful position and can have such an influence, then they need to be held accountable," Debra Champlin says now.

"Where was OSU during all this?"

--

is a freelance reporter who regularly writes about Oregon State athletics.

-- With contributions from The Oregonian's

and freelance reporter Clifton Chestnut in Madrid.