Another Rutgers Controversy: New Athletic Director Said to Have Called Former Players 'Whores, Alcoholics and Learning Disabled

Julie Hermann talks to the media after being introduced as Rutgers University athletic director on May 15, 2013 in Piscataway, New Jersey. Hermann, 49, most recently served as University of Louisville's senior associate athletic director. She replaces Tim Pernetti who resigned on April 5 in the wake of footage came to light of then-head basketball coach Mike Rice physically and verbally abusing his players during multiple practices. (Photo: Rich Schultz /Getty Images)

NEWARK, N.J. (TheBlaze/AP) -- Rutgers can't seem to dig itself out of athletic controversies after its basketball coach was fired for a tape showing him throwing balls and kicking players earlier this year. The university then lost its athletic director and hired a woman to clean up the scandal-scarred program.

Now, a letter has emerged revealing Julie Herrmann, who was hired to become Rutgers first female athletic director earlier this month, quit as Tennessee's women's volleyball coach 16 years ago after her players submitted a letter complaining she ruled through humiliation, fear and emotional abuse, The Star-Ledger reported Saturday night on its website.

"The mental cruelty that we as a team have suffered is unbearable," the players wrote about Hermann, hired May 15 as Rutgers' athletic director after serving as the No. 2 athletic administrator at Louisville.

In the letter submitted by all 15 team members, the players said Hermann called them "whores, alcoholics and learning disabled" and they wrote: "It has been unanimously decided that this is an irreconcilable issue." The players told The Star-Ledger that Hermann absorbed the words and said: "I choose not to coach you guys."

The 49-year-old Hermann, set to take over the Rutgers' program June 17, told The Star-Ledger she didn't remember the letter. The newspaper said when it was read to her by phone Wednesday, she replied, "Wow."

Julie Hermann listens during a news conference where she was introduced as the new athletic director at Rutgers University on Wednesday, May 15, 2013, in Piscataway, N.J. Hermann was a senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator at the University of Louisville. Rutgers has been looking for a new AD since Tim Pernetti resigned on April 5, part of the fallout from the Mike Rice scandal. (Photo: AP/Mel Evans)

Hermann, the first woman to head Rutgers' athletic program and one of three female ADs at the 124 schools that make up college football's top tier, has promised a restart for the program following the ouster of its men's basketball coach and the resignation of other officials.

She is set to replace Tim Pernetti, who quit last month after the firing of basketball coach Mike Rice. Practice videos surfaced of Rice shoving and throwing basketballs at players and yelling gay slurs at them.

"No one on the coaching staff doesn't believe that we need to be an open book, that we will no longer have any practice, anywhere at any time, that anybody couldn't walk into and be pleased about what's going on in that environment. It is a new day. It is already fixed," Hermann said at her introductory news conference.

At that news conference, Hermann was questioned about a 1997 jury verdict that awarded $150,000 to a former Tennessee assistant coach who said Hermann fired her because she became pregnant.

Here the Star-Tribune pulled together then and now "dueling videos":

Rutgers' problems started in December when Rice was suspended three games and fined $75,000 by the school after a video of his conduct at practices was given to Pernetti by Eric Murdock, a former assistant coach. The video showed numerous clips of Rice firing basketballs at players, hitting them in the back, legs, feet and shoulders. It also showed him grabbing players by their jerseys and yanking them around the court. Rice can also be heard yelling obscenities and using anti-gay slurs.

The controversy went public in April when ESPN aired the videos and Rutgers President Robert Barchi admitted he didn't view the video in the fall. Rice was fired and Pernetti, assistant coach Jimmy Martelli and interim senior vice president and university counsel John Wolf resigned.

After a series of interviews with many of the former Tennessee players about Hermann, The Star-Ledger said:

"Their accounts depict a coach who thought nothing of demeaning them, who would ridicule and laugh at them over their weight and their performances, sometimes forcing players to do 100 sideline pushups during games, who punished them after losses by making them wear their workout clothes inside out in public or not allowing them to shower or eat, and who pitted them against one another, cutting down particular players with the whole team watching, and through gossip.

"Several women said playing for Hermann had driven them into depression and counseling, and that her conduct had sullied the experience of playing Division I volleyball."

The Star-Ledger asked Hermann about the players' lingering grievances.

"I never heard any of this, never name-calling them or anything like that whatsoever," she told the newspaper. "None of this is familiar to me."

Rutgers will join the Big Ten in 2014.

Read more about Hermann's past in the Star-Tribune's in-depth article here.

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