WP Volleyball Coaches Suspended

WAITSBURG - The Waitsburg and Prescott school districts suspended the entire WP volleyball coaching staff Friday pending an investigation into allegations that they created an atmosphere of harassment, intimidation and bullying.

"The WP high school volleyball coaches have been suspended for the remainder of the season," Waitsburg Superintendent Dr. Carol Clarke and Prescott Superintendent Dr. Bill Jordan said in a prepared statement that did not cite the reasons for the suspension.

"The volleyball team will continue its practice and game schedules. Due to the ongoing investigation and to respect the players ' and coaches' privacy, there will be no further information provided at this time."

The coaches in question are WP head coach Jessie Buehler, and assistant coaches Katie Buehler (her sister) and Tressa Robins. They have been replaced by Karen Huwe and Wendy Richards who led the team's practice Monday and coached the league game at home against DeSales Tuesday night. WP lost in three games.

Two key starters, team captain and senior Megan Withers and senior Genesis Pearson, have voluntarily left the team.

Local sports historian Ross Hamann said although invidual coaches have been dismissed or suspended in the past, he could not recall another time an entire coaching staff was suspended.

Although school district officials declined to comment further, suspended head coach Jessie Buehler said in a telephone interview that in an office meeting with the athletics directors last week she learned some players and a parent have accused her of unfairly and inappropriately singling out a player whom she said the coaching staff and other team members felt had a counterproductive attitude.

Buehler said that in a team meeting earlier in the week designed to address everyone's concerns about any problems affecting the team performance so far this season, most players' comments centered on the player in question.

After the meeting, the district received a formal complaint from a parent and statements from student players alleging the coaches had inappropriately singled out the player for collective criticism in a session they said amounted to bullying.

District officials told Buehler and her staff to pack up their belongings from the coaches' office, turn in their keys and leave school property under escort.

"It's been a public humiliation," Buehler said. "The whole school's coming down on me."

A source close to the district said the formality of the complaint that was corroborated by statements from athletes at the team meeting put the districts on an irreversible course of suspension or it would have been at risk of legal exposure.

Buehler said that since her suspension, the districts' staff and community members have treated her as though she is guilty as charged despite the district's claim that the affair is only under investigation.

The suspended coach said she did not get a chance to air her side of the story before the districts made their decision to suspend her and the other coaches, a move she said was not supported by all key members of the districts' athletics programs.

Although she admitted she could have handled the timing and manner of the team meeting differently (it came during Homecoming week), Buehler said the girls needed an opportunity to express their concerns about their teamwork with such few games left in the season. The Cardinals' volleyball team has not done well so far this year. They are 2-8. Chris Pearson, whose daughter Genesis is one senior starter on the team who quit the Cardinals over the controversy, said he has "grave concerns as a parent and a community member with the (district's) handling of the situation."

Pearson, a former athlet­ics director for the Waitsburg school district, said the sus­pended coaches could have been sanctioned in a lesser and quieter manner for the way they handled the team meeting and been given a proper opportunity to speak on their own behalf and to the team after they were sus­pended. "The student athletes have been hurt the worst," he said.

He said he would have brought in the parent(s), the coach(es) and sought resolu­tion

by working it out with them. "Ninety-nine point nine percent, that's where it would have stopped," he said.

Withers, who quit the team an hour before the game against Walla Walla Valley Academy Thursday, was reached by phone but declined to be quoted for this story.