While Blacksburg braces for winter, four senior leaders, formerly of Virginia Tech's lacrosse team, prepare for the bitter months leading up to what would've been their showcase season. Their worlds were turned upside-down after what they consider a cold dismissal.
"This was our life (for) up to three years," said 2006 Tech lacrosse Rookie of the Year Christina Griel. "It's all very important to us; we care about this team. Our best friends are on our team."
They were initially suspended on Sept. 15 after recruits visited the team and attended a brunch at the house of junior defender Jacquelyn Duggins and senior goalie Kari Morrison before a home football game against Georgia Tech on Sept. 13.
According to the four seniors who were dismissed, issues between them and head coach Katrina Silva arose over whether they were trying to change the coach's planned time for brunch with the visiting recruits prior to the event.
The players didn't take to their dismissal lightly.
Not Casey Warner, who says she had a cardiac ablation -- heart surgery to rectify irregular contractions -- during her sophomore year to keep playing.
Not Kristy Zeigler, who recently went under the knife to remove bone spurs caused by the multiple times her wrists were broken on the field over the past three seasons.
Not Griel, who's finally off the blood thinners she'd taken for six months. She suffered a blood clot following surgery to repair the meniscus she tore against American University last spring.
Not Terri Coover, who had her deviated septum repaired during her sophomore season in the name of lacrosse.
Now all they have is hurt.
THE LAST STRAWS
Those seniors, as well as current members of the team, said that the recruiting brunch ended up running as Silva planned at 10:30 a.m., but that on the following Monday, the head coach suspended them and the two other seniors -- midfielder Rachel Culp and Morrison -- amidst suspicion that they were trying to undermine her, the four players said.
"All of us, as seniors, have apologized to her and realized we made a mistake as seniors, and we're understanding that we made a mistake," Griel said. "We did a bad job communicating, and we even said that we could understand how she would think that maybe we were trying to go behind her back and plan this, but we had no intentions of that."
Silva declined repeated attempts for an in-person or phone interview with the Collegiate Times. She offered to answer questions over e-mail, but said that she could not speak on a number of the dismissals, citing confidentiality regulations under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
When the Collegiate Times notified Silva that a Department of Education spokesman said that HIPAA and FERPA apply only to documents, not to opinions or ideas and that the Tech athletics policy does not legally prevent her from answering its questions -- which were offered to be e-mailed ahead of time under the agreement of an in-person meeting for her answers -- Silva declined to comment on any matter relating to the article and asked that the Collegiate Times not pursue further contact with her.
Griel, Coover, Warner and Zeigler explained that, following interviews executed by Silva in the incident's aftermath, the head coach dismissed each of them but decided that Morrison -- who played under Silva at Colgate before transferring to Tech -- and Culp -- who qualified for the second round of tryouts for the U.S. Women's National Team this past summer -- would be reinstated.
"We were all in this together up through us getting suspended," Coover said. "And we're not sure where the separation lies."
The latest of those forced out, however, land in a pattern spanning back to 2006 and Silva's arrival on campus.
This stretch -- one that saw 14 players who were recruited by or joined the roster under the prior coach as freshmen in the classes of 2009 or 2010 leave the team for non-injury-related reasons -- culminated with Silva's dismissal of these seniors on Sept. 18.
According to the recently dismissed, Silva described the issue to them as "insubordination" and "inconsistency" in answering her questions following the recruiting visit dispute.
Prior to this rapid dwindling, the program had hired a new coach in search of its first conference win since joining the ACC -- a feat the program still has yet to accomplish.
Now Griel -- who was a defender -- and former midfielders Coover, Warner, and Zeigler can only spend the season in which they expected to be senior leaders watching their team from the stands.
"We've all done everything asked of us. ... It's really hurtful to know that this is your senior year and it's taken away from you for something we don't really understand," Griel said. "Your senior year is supposed to be your showcase of everything you've worked for -- basically your entire life playing sports. I mean, after senior year, that's it. Nothing's left."
PICKING UP THE PIECES
Nearly two months removed from the latest roster shake up, a group of parents, alumni, former players and former coaches of players who have left Tech's lacrosse team sent letters to Athletic Director Jim Weaver and President Charles Steger.
"As parents, we felt we were run over by a truck when our kids told us (they had been dismissed)," said Dan Griel, father of Christina Griel, and a leader in this movement.
Weaver's office told the Collegiate Times that he declined to comment on the seniors' dismissal and the certified letter, though his office did confirm that the package was received. Griel said he was notified that Steger's office received it during the week of Nov. 4.
University spokesman Larry Hincker declined to comment. Senior associate director of athletics and senior women's administrator
Sharon McCloskey, to whom Weaver directed questions on the matter, did not return repeated attempts to contact her.
This included a package of testimonies to the character of the seniors who were dismissed this season and a list of things gone awry with Tech lacrosse, among other things. The focus of this movement pays acute attention to September's departed.
Griel had started nearly every game since joining the Tech squad as a freshman before the 2006 season, though she missed last season's ACC tournament with a torn meniscus.
She and the other three dismissed in September were considered a key source of leadership on an already youthful team.
"We literally couldn't ask for better teammates," current sophomore attacker Mary Kate Larkin said. "I know before the season started I was planning on voting Christina Griel as our captain."
Griel, Warner and Coover claim to have had no prior incidents with Silva and numerous interviews with players both former and current to Tech's lacrosse squad have not turned up examples of simmering conflict with the coach.
Dan Griel said that Tech administration has told them that they will keep out of the situation because of the fact that personnel decisions are the coaches' prerogative.
"Nobody knows, clearly, what the issue was," Dan Griel said.
A VANISHING ACT
After Tech's '06 spring season, head lacrosse coach Tami Riley resigned, leaving her position to be filled by Silva, who was the head coach at Colgate from 1999 to 2006. Since then, Tech has amassed a record of 9-26 (0-10 ACC), while seeing its win total (9) fall short of the number of players who have quit, been cut, transferred or dismissed (14) from the '09 and '10 classes.
Would-be junior attackers Anne Hague and Alex Mengel have also left the team, but Hague attributed their leaving to NCAA Medical Hardship.
Junior Mary Dunleavy chose Tech in the same recruiting class as Hague, which was assembled by Riley's staff but only coached by Silva.
"Practice was never a practice; it was always a tryout," Dunleavy said.
Dunleavy quit the team in January 2007 and emphasized a poisonous team environment as a major contributor to her leaving.
"You were never secure," Dunleavy said. "And that made it hard to play as a team."
Defender Ashley German, midfielder MacKenzie Costello, defender Lauren Swenson and goalie Megan Waters have all quit since joining the team as freshmen prior to the 2006 or 2007 seasons.
Midfielder Faith Richards transferred to Rutgers. Defender Sam Titus, midfielder Taylor Radecic, and goalie Caitlin Thomas were all players cut from the roster in what Dunleavy described as approximately a year-long process.
Briana Beach said she was recruited to play on scholarship by Riley, but was cut by Silva during tryouts.
"She wanted to make her own team," Thomas said, who was cut after her sophomore season in 2007. "She was going to get rid of all the girls on the previous team by any means possible."
The Collegiate Times has attempted to reach each dismissed, cut, quit, injured and transferred player in the '09 and '10 Tech lacrosse classes, and has contacted each on the record except for German, Titus and Mengel.
Culp, Morrison, Duggins and junior attacker Briana Warner -- the sister of Casey Warner -- comprise the upperclassmen group on a 25-player roster. Duggins and Morrison are transfers, while Warner walked on in her freshman year.
Culp -- the only remaining Riley recruit -- declined to comment.
COMBUSTIBLE CHEMISTRY
Former team captain Britt Faulkner said play, "became more individualized under" Silva.
Faulkner, the 2007 team MVP and a four-year starter, said that in her senior campaign -- Silva's first regular season as Tech head coach -- her playing time dropped dramatically.
Lindsay Pieper, Tech lacrosse's third all-time point scorer and 2007 Virginia Tech Scholar-Athlete of the Year, also played under Silva during her senior season and said that this individualization contributed to a drop in victories under Silva's leadership.
Pieper was a sports staff writer for the Collegiate Times during her time at Tech.
"It became far more individualized, and that definitely extended to games and definitely demonstrated in I think the record under Silva. ... She promoted it, that's what she wanted; she promoted individualist style of play. That's how she wanted people to play."
This individualization came to a head in September.
"I think Silva's need for complete control and authority at any means necessary is incredibly harmful," Pieper said. "If you just kind of look at the situation now, cutting four seniors to prove a point or to assert her authority is really harmful to the team and the program."
"You can't cut four of your best players and expect to have a winning season, and you can't cut four of your best players based on hearsay and rumors on a whim."
In Riley's final three seasons, the team amassed a record of 21-27, with a 2-4 conference record in the Big East and an 0-9 conference record in the ACC. Entering her third year, Silva's apparent reconstruction of the program has coincided with a dip in victory total, though this is often typical in the early years of rebuilding.
Silva experienced considerable success before taking the reins at Tech, earning Colgate Coach of the Year honors in 2006 as well as Patriot League Coach of the Year accolades in 2004 and 2005.In her final two years at Colgate, her team reached the NCAA tournament.
While the sophomore and freshman classes will gain greater game experience and might see the level of success of Silva's Colgate teams, it may not eradicate the bitter taste left in the mouths of upperclassmen ushered out.
"We've poured our entire heart and souls into this team our entire career," Zeigler said.