Every day I wanted to quit. Everybody wanted to quit, honestly. … The whole entire season was disheartening. … Just to have the whole season turn out like that, for her to do the things she did, it was really saddening. – Austen Harris
ST. GEORGE — A lifetime of working to fulfill dreams of playing college basketball ended in a nightmarish experience for two former Dixie State players, they say.
Austen Harris and Nanea Woods claim their former basketball coach harassed them about their sexual orientation, forced them to participate in religious activities and treated them differently because of their race.
Earlier this week, the two women filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City alleging that the actions of former coach Catherria Turner and her father Stevie Turner, who often assisted her in her duties, violated their statutory and constitutional rights.
“Every day I wanted to quit,” said Austen Harris, who is still attending Dixie State University where she hopes to graduate early so she can play basketball her final year of eligibility at a different college. “Everybody wanted to quit, honestly. … The whole entire season was disheartening. … Just to have the whole season turn out like that, for her to do the things she did, it was really saddening.”
Dixie State University athletic director Jason Boothe and attorney Michael Carter declined to comment on the lawsuit. Catherria Turner could not be located for comment. She was fired by the university in November 2014 for “withholding critical information from the athletic department” and “committing her second NCAA violation during her 18 months of employment,” the lawsuit said.
Among the allegations outlined in the lawsuit are:
• Turner violated NCAA rules when she required her players to shoot 500 shots per day, a task Harris said took two to three additional hours each day.
• She and her staff failed to allow players to take water breaks during conditioning practices, which resulted in Woods passing out and being taken to a hospital.
• She required them to participate in religious acts, like praying as a team, as well as using religious terms in her team meetings and conversations.
• She asked Harris and Woods about their sexual orientation repeatedly, and accused them of having a relationship, which the player contracts explicitly forbids, in front of the rest of the team.
• She ostracized the team’s African-American players by having them room together, using a different disciplinary standard for African-American players than was used for white players, and referring to them as “the Sistas.”
• She left five players on a bus, refusing to allow them to leave and failing to provide them with food while she and other team members attended church while at an out-of-town tournament.
“We asked if we could get some food or if we could be dropped off, but they said no,” Harris said. “They just said, ‘We’re going to church. There are enough of us that want to go,' so a few girls had to stay on the bus.”
Woods said Turner allowed the bus driver to drop several LDS players at a chapel for a service, and then she and several others attended the church to which she belonged.
“We had just practiced,” Woods said. “We still had not eaten.”
Harris said most of the girls were religious, but not all wanted to participate in some of the activities led by Turner.
Woods claimed Turner repeatedly asked Harris about her sexual orientation.
A few days after asking Woods whether or not she had a boyfriend, Turner yelled at the team during a practice for violating her team rule of dating within the program.
“She said, ‘You guys don’t respect me,’” Woods recalled. “She said, ‘I told you there is no dating between the team.’ The whole time everyone knows who she is looking at and who she is talking about. Everyone knows she’s talking about me and Austen.”
Both women said they tried to address the issues with Turner and with Boothe, the athletic director, who is a defendant in the suit.
After Turner was fired, Harris asked if she could be reinstated and play her final season at Dixie State, but school officials said no. They did, however, allow her to have an academic scholarship that paid her tuition in this final year.
Woods graduated early last summer and played her final season of basketball this winter. She said it was important for her to finish her collegiate career on a positive note.
“As a competitor and as an athlete, when you’ve played sports all your life, you don’t just give up,” Woods said. “It’s not something you just walk away from. … It’s very important to me.”
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