By: Max Xu

In only 5 months, Grambling State women’s volleyball coach Chelsey Lucas was fired, 3 months after she cut the whole team.

Lucas graduated from and played for Grambling in 2007, so it wasn’t a surprise to see her leading the volleyball program. But she started drawing a lot more attention when she decided to cut all 19 players from the team. Her decision was initially supported by the University, but she was eventually fired on July 5th, when Grambling State started investigating the motivation behind her decision.

In a statement, Grambling State said, “The decision was made due to the determination of an internal investigation within the volleyball program.”

Last year, Lucas coached the team at Arkansas Pine Bluff, and was hired at Grambling State on February 14 after the previous coach, Demetria Keys-Johnson, stepped down to take a different position at the university.

However, Lucas reportedly already had tense relations with the team when she was hired, and practices would mostly consist of punishments instead of actual drills, according to Monroe News-Star.

In her first meeting with the Grambling State team after being hired, Lucas reportedly said: “I bet you didn’t expect to see me again. I bet y’all will think twice about who y’all call a b—-.” This was in reference to last season, when Grambling State played against Arkansas Pine Bluff, where Lucas originally coached.

“When we played them at home and we beat them, our school has like this chant, but at the end of the chant you say, like, the B-word,” Grambling State player Sheila Borders told Andscape. “I guess she thought I was calling them B-words, but, like, the whole school says it. They say it at basketball games and football games. It’s nothing personal.”

On April 4th, Lucas called multiple individual meeting in which she told the 12 scholarship players that she wouldn’t renew their scholarships and told the 7 walk-ons their spots wouldn’t be renewed either. She did offer 4 former scholarship players the opportunity to remain on the team as walk-ons, but they all declined.

At first, Grambling State was on the same side as Lucas, and they issued a statement saying, “[j]ust as the transfer portal empowers student-athletes, our coaches are also empowered to make the decisions they deem necessary to advance their programs.”

However, the University later reversed their opinion and fired Lucas after investigating more into her.

Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/07/08/grambling-state-volleyball-coach-fired/