No Harmony on This Court : Women’s basketball: Some on the UC Riverside women’s basketball team say the coach is overly abusive, but she says she is only doing her job.

Odd things are happening in the UC Riverside women’s basketball program.

There is intense friction between the coach and some of the players. There are accusations, charges and countercharges.

One side would have you believe the coach is an abusive, out-of-control powerbroker who has been--aided by the indifference of the school’s myopic administration--ruining the lives of student athletes under her charge.

The other side says that a few disgruntled players--nursing long-festering resentments toward the coach who either benched them, took their scholarships or raised her voice against them--have concocted wildly exaggerated stories of rules violations and misconduct in a conspiracy to bring down the coach.

The case for either theory hinges on credibility. In this, the coach, her athletic director and the school’s vice chancellor are pitted against student athletes and some parents.

THE PROBLEMS

It seemed as if things were going well in 1990-91, Debi Woelke’s first season as women’s basketball coach at UC Riverside. The team was winning, the coach and her players were young.

But after the season ended, it became clear that happiness is not always a dividend of success.

The first inkling came during a hastily called meeting in the office of John Masi--Riverside’s men’s basketball coach and soon to become the athletic director. Masi said he listened to the player complaints but didn’t act.

“I felt it was out of my realm,” he said. “What could I do? I didn’t really know anything, so that was about the end of it.”

The ramifications of that meeting continued over the next two years of Woelke’s tenure. Reports by players to school authorities continued about Woelke’s alleged abusive yelling, her mind games and even perceived violations of NCAA rules. With a frequency that itself became a pattern, the players’ stories were not believed.

Other incidents also suggested problems in the program. Woelke found her car had been “keyed,” her house and yard strewn with toilet paper and, at school, derogatory graffiti about her spray-painted on campus.

Even after Masi became athletic director, he elected to stay out of the situation.

“In all honesty--because of the perception that the men’s coach would be interfering with the women’s program--I have stayed out of it as much as possible, even as athletic director,” Masi said. “Because I’m still basketball coach, I did not spend as much time as I would have liked viewing their program.”

Then there was the letter.

Masi received an anonymous letter from a parent, criticizing Woelke’s coaching style, described as belligerent and belittling. Woelke, the letter said, was inflicting emotional harm on her players.

Masi did not attach much credibility to the letter, which he said he believed to be written by disgruntled players rather than by a parent. He said the letter read as if written by a “fourth grader.”

Sandie Evans wrote the letter. Her daughter, Vicki, was on the Riverside team. For two years Evans and her husband traveled to all the team’s games. They said they watched as their daughter’s love for the game diminished.

“We saw what went on and we wanted to stop it,” Sandie Evans said. “I wrote the letter. There was just too much going on. The girls were afraid to do anything. I would never treat young women that way. She (Woelke) is a screamer and a yeller. She cussed. These girls were belittled. These girls hated her.”

Patterns emerged.

Players were leaving the program at a disproportional rate, the result of having walked off or been kicked off. According to school records, the team has been losing an average of 25% of its roster each season. Others reported constant verbal abuse. Monica Vargas, who was reared in a Spanish-speaking household, was a player whom teammates said Woelke singled out for criticism.

“I’m very scared of her,” Vargas said before the school year started. “I don’t want to go back to school. I’m afraid Coach Woelke will treat me bad. I’m afraid. She makes me feel really stupid. She makes me feel like I’m nothing. She would say things like ‘Speak English!’ She called me a stupid idiot all the time.”

Chris Mendoza was another player who, according to others, was picked on by Woelke. Mendoza, considered by some the team’s most talented player, said the coach was critical of her consistency during games. Woelke acknowledged that she and teammates would place bets on how Mendoza would play. Saying her basketball problems were in her head, Woelke advised Mendoza to seek psychological help.

“I used to get sick before practice, sick to my stomach,” Mendoza said. “A lot of people would feel sick. They knew she would yell. I would dread going to practice.”

Former player Kristen Okura said: “I’ve had coaches yell and scream. That’s what coaches do. I’ve heard yelling, and I think I know when it’s constructive or personal. Hers was inappropriate. When it became abusive. When her veins bulge and her eyes pop out of her head. She’s obsessive. She’s paranoid. She thinks people are out to get her.”

One of the most serious charges to cross Masi’s desk during this time was that Woelke made unwanted sexual advances to one of her players. The player alleges the encounters took place in Woelke’s office before and during the season. The player reported Woelke’s alleged actions to Masi and the school’s ombudsman and left the team at the end of the season.

Woelke has denied the charges and says the player is emotionally unstable.

Masi did not report the charges to anyone, including Woelke. He said he took no action because the player would not provide a detailed account of the incidents. The allegations were never reported to Vice Chancellor Louis J. Leo, Masi’s boss.

POINT, COUNTERPOINT

Debi Woelke, 36, says she is stunned by the charges. She says she doesn’t understand why players she cared about are saying these things about her. She says the accusations are coming from a small group of players who are out to destroy her.

“I think, over the past years, these players have gotten together and formed a committee,” Woelke said. “They are digging. They are trying to find as many bad things as they can against me. And none of what they say can be substantiated.”

Woelke says her program is not leaking players and that players are leaving the school for a variety of reasons. Homesickness, Woelke says, is primary among them.

Yet, according to the athletic director, the women’s basketball team has never had an out-of-state player. Rosters indicate that the teams were made up almost exclusively of local players.

But Woelke is ready with answers to a laundry list of accusations.

Some players say Woelke was often present during the summer conditioning period, a time when NCAA rules forbid coaches from putting players through basketball drills. They say Woelke would direct players in drills that mimicked basketball skills.

“She’d draw up plays real fast and we’d go on the floor and we’d run the plays,” former player Jenny Newsome said. “We all had the feeling that we weren’t supposed to be doing it. The coaches kidded around about it. One drill was to throw a tennis ball against the wall, and a teammate would jump up and get it. That was a rebounding drill.”

Another drill was designed to teach players how to run the court.

“We would run around cones and cut into the lane,” said Rachel Rosario, a captain from last season’s team. “She pretended it was conditioning, but we knew what it was.”

Woelke defends her summer conditioning drills as “perfectly legal. We try to be as creative as we can so they are not just conditioning, but they are doing cuts and slides.”

Woelke’s workouts, when described to a member of the NCAA enforcement staff, were called “creative” and probably not a rules violation.

Several players told The Times that the team began mandatory practices during the conditioning period, before formal practices were allowed. Once the season started, players say, the team routinely practiced more than the 20 hours a week allowed under the rules.

“Our best practices were when visitors were there,” said player Alison Fricka. “She didn’t yell as much and we didn’t go as long.”

Woelke says she keeps a log of practice times and submits it to the athletic director. Because no one monitors the accuracy of the logs, an NCAA enforcement officer said the log system came down to the coach’s word against everyone else’s.

Not counted among those who have left the program are players who graduate. There have been few. Players allege Woelke had little regard for academics. In her three seasons, at least one of the team’s 12-15 players has been on academic probation each year. Two players were academically disqualified two years ago. One current player, a senior, has yet to declare a major.

“To her, school is secondary; she’s proved that many times,” Okura said.

Woelke says she is very concerned about academics and that she holds mandatory study halls for players with grade problems.

If the team has a history of academic struggle, perhaps an explanation can be found in the school’s policy of loading the team with special admits--students who do not meet the minimum requirements to be admitted to the UC system, but are allowed to enroll anyway.

Woelke said that her team usually has “a player or two” on special admit each year. However, in the 1991-92 season, six of the 12 players on the Riverside women’s basketball team were special admits. Last season, nine of 15 were special admits.

For some players who were awarded scholarships, Woelke has a policy of tying scholarship money to the amount of money a player can raise for the team in various fund-raising activities, such as Shoot-A-Thons. Woelke told players that fund raising was “part of their responsibility” and said the more money they raised, the more scholarship money they would receive.

According to players, Woelke didn’t like her authority questioned during practice. One player, Vicki Evans, was accused by Woelke of talking too much during practices, and exhibiting other “attitude” problems.

Woelke called Evans into her office and presented her with a typed one-page contract for Evans to sign. In the contract, Evans acknowledged that she was “a problem player and always had been” and forbade her from talking during practice. If she didn’t live up to the terms of the contract, Woelke said, it would cost Evans her scholarship.

Evans, a Dean’s List student and one of the team captains, refused to sign the document. Evans’ parents contacted school officials and Woelke and Evans reached an understanding.

But last season, Woelke kicked Evans off the team three days before the league playoffs began. Evans and other players say Woelke told the team that Evans quit. But Evans had made a tape recording of the conversation in which Woelke kicked her off the team and played it for some teammates.

Woelke acknowledges that she kicked Evans off the team, calling it coach’s prerogative, but denies telling the team Evans had quit.

A similar situation arose last week with Monica Vargas. Woelke presented Vargas with a document that outlined what Woelke viewed as Vargas’ violation of 12 team rules, including arriving late to practice and missing mandatory weightlifting workouts.

Woelke asked Vargas to sign the paper and Vargas refused. Woelke kicked Vargas, a starter, off the team. Two days later, Vargas was allowed back on the team on what Woelke calls a “third opportunity probation.”

Woelke says Vargas’ temperament has changed this season, turning the player into an “angry, hateful young lady.” Woelke contends that Vargas’ attitude is detrimental to the team and with the next infraction she will be kicked off the team for good.

WHOM TO BELIEVE?

Not all players have had bad experiences at Riverside.

“I’ve never had a problem,” said Debbie Fischer, a senior. “My thought is, a lot of girls are young, they need to get over it.”

Masi, Woelke and others have portrayed the complaining players as being too sensitive and not being able to handle the pressure of big-time college athletics. They are, school officials say, troublemakers and malcontents.

Woelke suggested to a reporter that the complaining players had caused trouble on their high school teams. However, high school and junior college coaches contacted by The Times reported no problems with the players Woelke identified.

“She recruited all of us and gave us scholarships,” former player Kristen Okura said. “And now we are all bad players with a history of problems?”

To school officials, the complaints are unfounded. As Masi says, “It comes down to the coach’s word against the players. I have to go with the coach.”

Leo, the vice chancellor who oversees the sports programs, said the school has been concerned about the problems brought to his attention. However, he was unaware of some of the more serious charges until a Times reporter told him about them.

And then there is Rachel Rosario, an All-American at Riverside, who says she didn’t have problems with Woelke, but watched as others did.

“I know a lot of things she said hurt a lot of people,” Rosario said. “I felt that she didn’t separate her personal feelings from the job. I’ve seen too many ballplayers come and go, and it’s not a pretty sight. I know some players have talked to the authorities. Nothing ever happened. I just wish something could be done about it. Coach Woelke helped me. I appreciate that. But other people had an awful experience.”

Jennifer Newsome is one such person. Her troubles have been such that her mother, Ann Newsome, has been moved this week to write a letter to the chancellor of UC Riverside.

Ann Newsome is seeking to remove a letter written by Masi from her daughter’s school records. The letter is the athletic department’s official explanation of and justification for Woelke dismissing Jennifer from the team and revoking her scholarship.

Masi’s letter, which was based on information supplied by Woelke, alleges, among other things, that Jennifer Newsome is a violent and abusive person and has engaged in fights with her teammates and opponents.

Ann Newsome, a physician, said she has been concerned by the changes she has observed in her daughter since Jennifer has been part of the UC Riverside program and since the Newsome family has been working within the system to resolve the dispute.

She said the family will do whatever it takes to clear Jennifer’s name, including legal action.

“The entire officialdom is behaving as if this is their dirty linen,” Ann Newsome said. “If they had stopped the problem where it originated, it wouldn’t have ballooned.

“There is something intrinsically wrong with the University of California system that it allows one individual to have this kind of control and power.

“I have no desire to ruin Coach Woelke’s reputation or standing in the community. But these are young women. They don’t have the kind of skills to deal with this. I know these young women, they have been in my home. I’ve seen what it’s done. Jennifer will never be the same.”

And so the question remains, here on the day that official practice begins for the Riverside women’s basketball team, which side is telling the truth?