San Jose State volleyball coach defends players from ‘outside forces’ amid transgender lawsuit firestorm

SAN JOSE – After an hour and a half inside San Jose State’s sweltering gymnasium on Thursday night, the host Spartans lost a rather mundane women’s volleyball match 3-0 to San Diego State.

The crowd cheered for SJSU kills, groaned at missed serve receptions and politely applauded at the end of the match. The players bounced around to mid-2000s pop hits before the match, huddled up after points and then went through the handshake line after the result went final.

Nothing – absolutely nothing – indicated that the Spartans were engulfed in a maelstrom that included three forfeits and relentless media attention after a lawsuit that included team captain Brooke Slusser claimed a teammate was transgender. 

San Jose State coach Todd Kress had a pointed post-match message for people who had been sending “hate mail (through) DMs, voicemail on Instagram and email” that he labeled as “disgusting” to members of the team.

“The people who are sending those messages, I think they need to wake up, look at themselves in the mirror and really question who they are as human beings,” Kress said. “Is their end game to try to damage the mental health of 18-, 19- and 20-year-old females?”

There was no sign of that malice inside – or immediately outside – the facility. An hour before the match, the only sound that could be heard on campus was cars driving around San Jose and students getting ready to leave campus. 

But the “noise” surrounding the team has been deafening.

In the past few weeks, three teams – Boise State, Wyoming and Utah State –  have forfeited their matches against San Jose State. While no specific reason has been given, it is apparently to protest the participation of the athlete who was named as transgender in a recent lawsuit after playing on the team for several years. 

When Slusser joined a class action lawsuit Sept. 23 against the NCAA, claiming the college athletics association is violating Title IX by allowing transgender athletes to compete at San Jose State and elsewhere, the matter gained national attention. 

The athlete named in the lawsuit has not publicly come out as transgender, and will not be named by this news organization. No athletes were made available to media by either school after the match. 

“Brooke’s entitled to join the lawsuit, right,” her coach said about the player whose parents were up in the stands. “I can’t deny her that fact. And if anybody else would choose to do so, that’s completely up to them.”

In lieu of having a coach talk to media following the match, San Diego State put out the following statement:

“We love playing the sport of volleyball. We remain focused on continuing our strong start to the season and competing for a Mountain West championship. Our decision to play is not intended to be any kind of statement besides demonstrating our commitment to volleyball.”

SDSU’s decision to play was deeply appreciated by the Spartans. 

“We’re day by day, and we’ve kind of learned to roll with the punches,” Kress said. “We don’t take anything for granted when we get a chance to play.”

San Jose State’s first home match since September was more than just a win or a loss for a team besieged by what the coach called “outside forces.”

“That’s our safe haven, the gym, right,” the coach said. “When we’re in there for those three hours, that’s three hours that we have together, that we really have to unite and love on one another and really appreciate one another.”

In response to the anonymous messages and heightened attention, San Jose State has increased security around the program, using university police to ensure player safety. Before the match, an officer stood behind the stands on the side where San Jose State was warming up.

But like last Thursday, when San Jose State lost its first match of the season and Colorado State swept the Spartans 3-0, the match came and went without incident. 

For those couple of hours on Thursday night, San Jose State got to be a regular volleyball team. But come Friday morning, it’ll be back to practice for the team’s match Saturday against UNLV, and back to the chaos that has no end in sight.

“We have no idea what our schedule holds down the road, but we’ll worry about that as we go day to day,” Kress said. “Tomorrow we’ll worry about practice, and then hopefully the Runnin’ Rebels will show up an we get a chance to play them on Saturday.”