EXCLUSIVE: Former San Jose State University assistant volleyball coach Melissa Batie-Smoose’s contract with the university expired Friday, and she has been told that it will not be renewed, she exclusively told Fox News Digital.
Her departure comes after a season plagued by a scandal involving a trans athlete, in which Batie-Smoose took a firm stance to oppose the university’s defense of that athlete. She and her family initially moved to California from the East coast to accept the job in 2023.
“We didn’t make the decision to move our family across the country lightly, but I believe that everything happens for a reason, and I was meant to be at San Jose State to stand up for these young women and do everything I could to protect future generations. In my 30 years of coaching, this is one of the most amazing groups of young women that I’ve been around. Their strength and resiliency during a difficult season was inspiring and one of the reasons why I had to take a stand,” she told Fox News Digital.
San Jose State declined to comment on Batie-Smoose’s contract situation when contacted by Fox News Digital.
“SJSU does not comment on personnel matters,” a university spokesperson said.
Batie-Smoose was suspended from the program on Nov. 2 after she filed a Title IX complaint against the university regarding its alleged handling of a situation involving former transgender player Blaire Fleming. The complaint included allegations that Fleming had conspired with an opponent to have Slusser hit in the face during a match in October.
“I spoke up for the young women on the team who were being silenced and gaslit while dealing with having a male athlete in their locker room, on the court and rooming with them on the road. I could not be silenced and manipulated any longer so I had to stand up for what was right,” she said.
“Speaking out to protect these young women and future women was too much to ignore. This has cost me my job, but we need more coaches to stand up for what is right. I just have to pray that by doing the right thing that justice will prevail and I will be able to continue to do what I was meant to do.”
Batie-Smoose is also currently engaged in a lawsuit against San Jose State and the Mountain West alongside 11 current and former conference players.
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The lawsuit is led by former San Jose State co-captain Brooke Slusser, who alleges that she had been made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with Fleming for an entire season while the university withheld the truth about Fleming’s birth sex from her and other players.
Both Slusser’s lawsuit and Batie-Smoose’s Title IX complaint allege that Fleming conspired with Colorado State volleyball player Malaya Jones ahead of the match between the two programs on Oct. 3. The complaint alleges Fleming provided a scouting report to Jones to ensure a Colorado State competitive advantage, and established a plan to set up Jones with a clear lane to spike Slusser in the face during the contest.
Colorado State University police behind the San Jose State University Spartans bench monitor Moby Arena during an NCAA Mountain West women’s volleyball game between the Spartans and the Colorado State Rams in Fort Collins, Colo., on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024. (Santiago Mejia/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Slusser was never spiked in the face during that match, but Colorado State did win in straight sets.
A Mountain West investigation into Batie-Smoose’s allegations did not find sufficient evidence to assign discipline to any player who was named in the allegations, which was stated in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital that was addressed to San Jose State athletic director Jeff Konya and Colorado State athletic director John Weber from Mountain West Deputy Commissioner Bret Gilliland.
That letter did not address allegations in Slusser’s lawsuit that provided further context on the incident, nor did it address the specific notion of an alleged conspiracy to have Slusser hit in the face. The letter simply referred to all the allegations listed in the complaint as “manipulation of the competition.”
Gilliland claimed that any evidence to back the claims in the complaint was insufficient, but did not explicitly state that the allegations were false, according to the letter.
The letter stated that the conference’s investigation included interviews with coaches and student-athletes at both San Jose State and Colorado State. However, the letter did not specifically state which individuals had been interviewed. The conference declined to provide any details on the individuals who had been interviewed when asked by Fox News Digital.
Slusser’s attorney Bill Bock later provided a statement to Fox News Digital insisting that the investigation had been “infected with bias.”
“Because the MWC’s investigation was inadequate, and anything but thorough, and because the MWC’s close-out letter is riddled with errors, the undersigned is issuing this rebuttal and demands that the MWC immediately and publicly release: (1) the investigative report prepared by its investigator(s), and (2) all documents connected to the MWC’s claimed ‘thorough investigation’ and upon which the MWC’s decision not to proceed further was based,” read the statement from Bock.
Slusser previously told Fox News Digital she has been spiked in the face by a volleyball in the past, and that the experience “stings, but you kind of just brush it off.” However, in their first season together in 2023, Slusser said she took one of Fleming’s spikes to her thigh, then had to nurse dark bruises on her thigh for an entire week after that. Slusser says she did not even know that Fleming was a trans athlete back then.
Slusser also previously told Fox News Digital that Batie-Smoose’s suspension left some of her teammates in tears.
SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
“After we found out that she was released, a lot of the team just kind of broke down and was kind of freaking out, and even one of my teammates was like, ‘I don’t feel safe anymore,’ because there’s no one now that we feel like we can go and talk to about our concerns or our actual feelings and can actually speak freely in front of,” Slusser said.
Slusser said she did not feel safe speaking with anyone else involved in the program, especially head coach Todd Kress.
“You can’t truly voice how you’re feeling without them just trying to cover it up or act like it’s all OK. With Melissa, you could voice how you felt, and she could comfort you and validate your feelings and at least make you feel heard, compared to the other coaches,” Slusser said.
SJSU went on to play in the conference championship game against Colorado State on Nov. 30 but lost. The loss kept Fleming, Slusser and the rest of the Spartans out of the NCAA tournament. Batie-Smoose was at the match in Las Vegas, Nevada, that weekend to support her former players, despite being suspended by the program.
Nearly every one of the players on SJSU’s 2024 team that has remaining NCAA eligibility has entered the transfer portal, Fox News Digital previously reported.
“I think that it speaks volumes that the majority of the team transferred because they did not want to be subjected to the mental anguish the university put them through. They had had enough of the lies and manipulation, and I wish them the best,” Batie-Smoose told Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, Slusser’s lawsuit against the school and conference has not yet gone to trial. Slusser is also engaged in Riley Gaines’ lawsuit against the NCAA over its policies on gender ideology that allows trans athletes to compete in women’s sports.
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