Former Idaho women’s basketball coach Divilbiss criticized in report
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – A Chicago law firm hired by the University of Illinois to investigate allegations of racially motivated mistreatment made by former women’s basketball players concluded in a report released Monday that those charges are unfounded.
Seven former players sued the university, coach Matt Bollant, athletic director Mike Thomas and others on July 1, alleging Bollant and some other coaches used race to divide the team and drive players out.
The report from the Pugh, Jones & Johnson law firm acknowledged now-former assistant coach Mike Divilbiss, a former head coach at Idaho, “treated players harshly.” The report recommended some changes, such as a code of conduct for coaches. But it concluded that complaints from players and parents started after a string of seven losses late in the 2014-15 season and included no real evidence of a racial divide.
“Some athletes and their parents obviously disagreed with the coaches’ judgments about which players most effectively executed their new style of play, but there is no evidence that the coaches did not honestly believe they put the best team on the floor, without consideration of players’ race,” the report concluded.
The players’ lawsuit accuses Bollant and Divilbiss, who are white, of treating black players poorly to try to push them off the team, and doing the same to white players who supported black players. It also accuses them of holding segregated practices known as “the dog pound” for less-favored players, using more severe discipline for black players, barring white and black players from rooming together and using derogatory terms for black players since Bollant was hired in 2012.
Divilbiss left the university in May under what the school has called mutual agreement and has not commented.