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Homophobia Alleged in
University of Florida Softball
Player Says She Was Released Because She
Is a Lesbian; School Defends Coaches
2005 update:
Florida softball coach fired
2004 Update:
Settlement reached in case
By
Jim Buzinski
Outsports.com
This should have been a happy time for Andrea Zimbardi. Her University
of Florida softball team was in the NCAA playoffs and she had been
hoping to play a key role as the team’s catcher. Instead, Zimbardi was
forced to sit in the stands in Gainesville and watch, wondering what
might have been, and what went wrong.
Zimbardi, an SEC honor roll student and a senior captain on
the team, was kicked off the Gators’ squad in March. Her coach told
her it was because Zimbardi had spread lies and misconceptions about
an assistant coach and about the program. Zimbardi, though, suspects
the real reason is that she’s a lesbian.
“I was kicked off because I wanted to take a stand against everything
that happened to me,” says Zimbardi, 23. “I believe I was
discriminated against because of my sexual orientation.”
 Zimbardi
(left) graduated this month with a degree in industrial engineering,
and was, according to current and former teammates, a popular and
talented player who came into the program as a walk-on and overcame
two knee surgeries to earn a starting role. How she went from being
hailed as a role model by her coach to being kicked off the team is
unclear.
Zimbardi alleges that head coach Karen Johns created an atmosphere of
alienation for anyone not sharing her Christian beliefs, outed other
coaches and players as lesbians, and reneged on an agreement not to
retaliate against Zimbardi when she took her concerns to the
university’s athletic administration. She further alleges that
assistant coach Heather Compton-Butler made inappropriate and leading
comments to her about lesbianism and lesbian relationships. Zimbardi
says she was not informed about team practices, and gradually saw her
playing time shrink until she was finally released on March 6.
“[Johns’] discrimination is very subtle,” says Karen Doering, an
attorney with the
National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), which is investigating
Zimbardi’s allegations. “Based on her deep intrusion into [players’]
personal lives, outing other coaches and players, and her [religious
moralizing], she sends a clear message to the lesbian players that
[homosexuality] is not acceptable. She’s not doing the
‘no-gay-people-can-play-for-me’ thing. But she’s creating an
environment where lesbian athletes feel uncomfortable.” The University
of Florida does not include sexual orientation in its
non-discrimination policy (see update at bottom).
Similar Allegations
Zimbardi isn’t the only player kicked
off the team since Johns took over
the
program in June 2000. Outsports interviewed two former players,
each of whom, like Zimbardi had had relationships with women. These
former players tell of Johns delving into what they say was
inappropriate personal territory, trying to discern which players
might be lesbians. Both players tell stories similar to Zimbardi’s, of
seeing their playing time suddenly and dramatically shrink, ending in
their release for unspecified reasons. Both former players were
interviewed with the promise of anonymity. In addition, e-mails and
team itineraries obtained by Outsports show that Johns was vocal about
her religious beliefs, confirming what the players have alleged.
“Our ongoing investigation is a result of some corroborated statements
from players and coaches that could suggest a pattern of anti-lesbian
comments toward team members and even other outstanding NCAA
fast-pitch softball coaches around the country,” says
Helen Carroll, coordinator of the Homophobia in Sports program for
NCLR, and herself a former coach and athletic director.
Outsports tried to speak with head coach Johns and Compton-Butler, the
assistant coach. Johns, in a statement released by the school,
would only say: "We acknowledge that Andrea Zimbardi is no longer on
the team and we wish her the best of luck in the future."
Compton-Butler was not made available for an interview.
Athletic Director Jeremy N. Foley also would not comment except to
issue a statement through the school’s Sports Information office:
"I've reviewed this matter and I'm very comfortable with how it was
handled,” Foley’s statement said. “I have the utmost confidence in our
coaches. The [federal] Buckley Amendment prevents us from talking
about the particulars of this matter. I do understand though, how
disappointed a student-athlete can get when things do not work out how
they planned.
"Our coaches are totally committed to the development of all of our
student-athletes. Andrea finished her degree at UF in May. We
supported Andrea's applications this spring for post-graduate
scholarship awards. We are proud of Andrea as well as our other
graduates. The education of our student-athletes is our most important
mission."
Problems With a Coach
Zimbardi has been out to
her mother and step-father since her senior year in high school, and
says they have been very supportive. She says her teammates knew she
had a girlfriend, but that it was simply accepted and never commented
on. “I know my teammates won’t judge me. I love them to death. They
looked at me not as gay Andrea but as a great catcher,” she says.
As someone whose name appears in the Gator record books for having
among the best fielding percentage for catchers in school history,
Zimbardi figured her place on the team was secure for her senior
season. In 2002, she caught the third most runners stealing (15) in
school history and was only two away from the school record, the
school's Web site says. She had a good relationship with Johns, who wrote a letter of
recommendation for Zimbardi for a scholarship. But things began to
change, she says, with the hiring of a new pitching coach,
Compton-Butler (she was Heather Compton at the time and married in
January), in the fall. Compton-Butler had been pitching coach for
Florida State.
When the two went for a run together last fall, Zimbardi says,
Compton-Butler began asking leading personal questions about her
relationships.
“She was trying to make a comment based on what my sexuality is,”
Zimbardi says. She says Compton-Butler “volunteered” information on
which Olympic and pro softball players were lesbians. The coach told
Zimbardi she knew “how bad the lesbian relationships were with these
players.” She specifically told Zimbardi about how badly one player
had treated her female partner.
“I kind of spoke up for female relationships,” says Zimbardi, who adds
that the whole conversation made her uneasy. She believes such a
conversation was not appropriate between a coach and a player. "I
don't want to be defined by that, especially by someone who doesn't
know my personal life.
From then on, Zimbardi says, she tried to limit her contact with
Compton-Butler as much as possible. But an incident in November
further bothered her.
The player says she was speaking with a secretary in the softball
athletic office about getting a haircut from the secretary’s stylist
when Compton-Butler walked by. Overhearing the conversation,
Compton-Butler, according to Zimbardi, said: “I hope you don’t get one
of those ‘butch’ haircuts.”
“I just stood there shocked,” Zimbardi says, as she interpreted
"butch" to mean lesbian. “I don’t believe [the secretary] knew about
me. Basically, [Compton-Butler] outed me in front of another employee
of the university. I was embarrassed about it. I don’t want to be
defined by [being a lesbian], especially by someone who doesn’t know
my personal life. I felt that was an intrusion.”
As the spring softball season began, Zimbardi says, she began to be
frozen out of team activities. She was not receiving calls from
Compton-Butler about the team’s twice-a-day practices, and says that
the coach got defensive when challenged. She also was the only player
not invited to a pitchers-catchers dinner at Compton-Butler’s house,
something the coach attributed to an oversight as she made a belated
invitation just hours prior to the get-together, according to
Zimbardi. “I didn’t want to be the only person not there that night,”
Zimbardi wrote in her diary of the season. “However, I still felt a
much excluded feeling because everyone else knew about the dinner but
me.”
Christian Beliefs Prominent
Zimbardi says she had no choice but to
turn to coach Johns to discuss her concerns about her treatment by
Compton-Butler. Based on past comments by the head coach, the player
was unsure about how she would be received.
From the moment Johns arrived as coach in Gainesville, she touted her
strong Christian beliefs, Zimbardi and the other players interviewed
say. They recall Johns leading the team in the Lord’s Prayer on the
field and occasionally inserting Biblical and religious passages in
the team’s printed itinerary. She would also tell the team about
recruits who were “good Christians.” An assistant coach under
Johns—who has since left the program—held Bible study classes, and
would ask the players if they were attending. “You felt guilty if you
said no,” Zimbardi says.
The head coach also regularly contrasted her Christian lifestyle with
others, including those of gays and lesbians, Zimbardi and the two
former players say. “The decision she made [to be a Christian] was the
one we needed to make to be good people,” one of the former players
recalls Johns having said more than once.
Johns, a two-time All-American catcher at South Carolina who was hired
by Florida after a successful stint as pitching coach at the
University of Alabama, also committed her faith to print. In an
October 2000 e-mail to Zimbardi, then recovering from knee surgery,
Johns wrote: "To show His love, Jesus died for us; to show our love,
we must live for Him." Hope your rehab is going good ... let me know
if I can do anything for you. GOD BLESS! GO GATORS!”
The coach also forwarded an e-mail to the entire team from an
organization called Competitive Edge International, that was seeking
softball players for a tour. “CEI is looking for Christian athletes
(and coaches) who desire to promote & develop softball worldwide AND
share their personal faith,” the e-mail read. Another team-wide e-mail
was simply titled “Joshua 1:9,” and read: "Remember that I have
commanded you to be determined and confident! Do not be afraid or
discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go."
In addition, the team was once given a handout by Johns titled “The
Lord’s Softball Team,” that discussed faith and devotion to God in the
context of a softball game.
The University of Florida does not have a policy regarding the
promotion of religion. However, any student who felt undue pressure
could file a complaint with the student grievance committee, according
to Paula Rausch of the university’s office of News and Public Affairs.
Athletic Director Foley, in a statement, said, “In my 12 years as
athletic director, I’ve not heard one complaint from anyone about the
expression of faith.” He added that it’s up to each team to decide how
and if they want to express their faith.
'Made Me Uncomfortable'
Religion aside, what especially
troubled Zimbardi, she says, was Johns’ frequent discussions of which
players and coaches in the sport were gay. “She outed a lot of
people,” Zimbardi says. She recalls one trip to California, where
Florida was playing against a school coached by one of Johns’ former
teammates. Zimbardi claims that at one point, Johns said that the only
difference between herself and the other coach was “that she’s gay and
I’m not.”
“These types of comments made me uncomfortable,” Zimbardi says. “I
wasn’t sure I could then approach her about certain things.”
The two former players who had also been released—both in prior
seasons—say their troubles began when Johns started getting more
personal than they were comfortable with. One says Johns had asked her
on a team flight about which players were dating other girls, and had
volunteered that a pitching coach on another team was sleeping with
one of her players.
“This was not a position a head coach should be taking,” the player
says. “She overstepped her boundaries. I was very upset.” This was not
the only time Johns had asked her about other players’ relationships.
“She was trying to be my friend and get information about the other
girls, but I was very guarded around her.” This player, who says she
had started the season as one of Johns’ favorites, saw her playing
time decrease and was soon released. “I was shocked,” the player says,
adding that she was never given a reason for her dismissal.
The second player released says Johns constantly intruded into her
personal life. When this player was dating a baseball player, she
says, Johns regularly “called his apartment and asked if I stayed
there with him. I confronted her and asked her to stop.” But Johns
persisted in asking questions, even after the two broke up. The
softball player then began dating a woman, and this also upset Johns.
“If you’re dating her, that’s not right. It’s a wrong lifestyle to
choose,” this player recalls Johns saying. She adds that the coach
regularly made negative references to homosexual “lifestyles” and said
she knew of lesbians who had committed suicide.
This second player says that by midseason her playing time was greatly
reduced, even though her statistics were good. Johns put her on a
leave of absence, the player says, “because she perceived a conflict
between me and the other girl [she had been dating]. I was
dumbfounded.”
The player says she then agreed to see a school counselor as a
condition of keeping her place on the team, but that she was
eventually released. Johns gave her no specific reason for the
decision except to say “it was for the best.” The player then
contacted an attorney, who said Johns could dismiss her only for
insubordination, bad grades or for committing a felony. The player
insists none of these criteria applied to her. “The only reason I can
give [for my dismissal] was what she had gathered about my personal
life.”
A Pivotal Meeting
It was against this backdrop that
Zimbardi approached Johns to discuss her treatment by Compton-Butler.
The head coach said that Zimbardi “was doing nothing wrong” and that
Compton-Butler had no issues with her. But as Zimbardi saw her playing
time greatly reduced, “I wondered if it had something to do with
Heather.”
The issue came to a head when Zimbardi attended a Feb. 22 meeting that
included her mother and step-father, coaches Johns and Compton-Butler,
Athletic Director Foley and Assistant Athletic Director Ann Marie
Rogers. “My parents felt it would be safe if the higher-ups were
there,” Zimbardi says.
The meeting seemed to go well from Zimbardi’s standpoint. She says
that after hearing her side, Foley told her “your perception is your
reality.” [Foley confirmed that he did say this.] He promised to work
to resolve any problems, according to Zimbardi.
But Johns denied that any of the incidents Zimbardi described had
happened, the player claims, and said “this was just my way to
complain about my lack of playing time.”
“I told [Johns] this was not about playing time and said, ‘I feel I’ve
been discriminated against by you and Heather and this whole program.’
”
The meeting then took a conciliatory turn, according to Zimbardi and
her mother, Candace Carlson-Bolin. “Coach Johns stood up, hugged me
and my husband and turned to Andrea, looked into her face with her
arms on Andrea’s and said, ‘I’m so sorry,’ ” Carlson-Bolin wrote in a
letter to Foley dated April 9. Though Foley had left the meeting
early, Zimbardi and her parents say they were assured by Rogers, Johns
and Compton-Butler that Zimbardi would not face retaliation for
speaking up.
Zimbardi was stunned when two days later she met with Johns,
Compton-Butler and assistant coach Dave Majeski, and was told she had
been suspended for a week. The head coach accused her of having told
lies and misconceptions at the meeting with Foley, and said, “whenever
you attack one of my assistants you attack me,” the player recalls.
“She then suggested I see a psychologist and gave me the number of
one,” Zimbardi says. The player refused to recant and left the
meeting, telling her coach she would be ready to return behind the
plate when needed.
A major source of contention occurred while Zimbardi was serving her
suspension. She alleges that Compton-Butler told members of the team
that Zimbardi had filed a complaint against her with a gay rights
group on campus. Zimbardi says she had not done this and was upset
that Compton-Butler had violated her agreement to keep details of the
meeting with Foley confidential. When Zimbardi reported this to
Rogers, the assistant AD said that Compton-Butler denied ever making
such an allegation. However, a current player interviewed by Outsports
quotes a teammate (who was also her roommate) as claiming that
Compton-Butler had in fact made such a statement. Doering, the NCLR
attorney, spoke with another player who said a rumor was rife among
the team that Zimbardi had “filed a lawsuit” with a gay rights group.
Off the Team
Zimbardi would never make it back on
the field. In a follow-up meeting with Johns on March 6, the player
was told she was being released from the team “because you did nothing
to clear up the misconceptions.” She was allowed to keep her
scholarship, but her collegiate sports career was over.
The decision infuriated Zimbardi’s
mother. In her three-page April 9 letter to Foley, she charged that
“lies have been told by your coaching staff. … I only hope and pray
that this injustice will be met and the truth prevail.” She added
that, “My daughter has been ‘outed’ by Coach Heather Compton-Butler
subsequent to our meeting. My daughter … has not discussed our meeting
with one other person in Gainesville that was not present at the
meeting. She, on the other hand, has been slandered, lied to and
[lied] about.”
Doering and NCLR Homophobia in Sports coordinator Carroll were
unsuccessful in getting Zimbardi reinstated for the remainder of the
season. Doering is especially dismayed by the university’s insistence
that nothing wrong had occurred, and by the fact that Zimbardi had
been retaliated against for raising her concerns.
“This is the poster child for how not to respond to allegations,”
Doering says. “They eliminated the problem by eliminating the victim.”
The currently active player interviewed by Outsports, who spoke on the
promise of anonymity, claims the team was never told why Zimbardi was
released. She says the team speculated that it might have had
something to do with Zimbardi’s sexuality. But this player also says
she didn’t think Johns “was discriminatory based on someone’s sexual
preference.” This player adds that she was not taking sides and had a
good relationship with both Johns and Zimbardi. She adds that the
coach praised Zimbardi even after her release, saying at one point,
“Andrea reminds me so much of me.”
“I believe Andrea feels the way she does for a reason,” this player
says. “I don’t think she would make things up. It’s unfortunate this
could not be resolved and our team has suffered. We lost a great
player and a huge asset. … I hope [this story] gets to the bottom of
what really happened.”
Zimbardi continued to attend games and root for her teammates, who
made it as far as the NCAA regional finals before bowing out. Now that
her playing career is over, she hopes her going public will “prevent
other athletes from going through this.” She still bleeds Gator Blue.
“The University of Florida always wants the best,” she says. “I hope
that by me doing this will make them better than they already are. If
they want the best [for the softball program] they better keep
looking. All I care about is the program.”
Update: From the
Gainesville Sun, June 13:
"Following behind
a national trend among public research universities, UF on June 13
became one of the last of 62 members in the Association of American
Universities to include "sexual orientation" among the list of reasons
for which the university may not discriminate."
The president of the Board of Trustees told the Sun that the Zimbardi
case had nothing to do with the passage.
May 21, 2003 |
