As Wichita State University continues to investigate why four women’s basketball players are choosing to transfer from WSU, another former player is speaking out with allegations against head coach Jody Adams.

Samantha Smith started her career at WSU in 2007 until she transferred from the program in December 2008. In her first season, Smith played under the previous head coach, Jane Albright, before Adams arrived in fall 2008.

Smith alleges racism, segregation and verbal abuse from Adams, including when Smith helped Adams recruit players. Smith said she had incidents of physical altercations with some of Adams’s former coaching staff.

“[She tried] to break your spirits and verbally say stuff and cuss you out,” Smith said. “… With me helping her recruit, said she’d rather have black girls on her team and not white girls. She was just like, ‘Black girls are more athletic, and I just get along better with black girls.’”

The investigation into Adams’s conduct and her staff began when four players from this year’s team — Michaela Dapprich, Moriah Dapprich, Alie Decker and Kayla White — quit the team once the season ended, as initially reported April 17 by the Wichita Eagle’s Paul Suellentrop.

“They have been granted a release,” stated Larry Rankin, media relations spokesperson for women’s basketball, regarding the four players’ status. “Only stipulation is that it cannot be to a school that we are currently under contract to play.”

Rankin stated it is normal procedure for a player to not be allowed to transfer to a school currently under contract.

University President John Bardo instructed faculty athletic representative Julie Scherz to lead the investigation.

“The president asked [Scherz] to go wherever the path leads,” said Lou Heldman, vice president of Strategic Communications, who is in charge of dealing with the institutional issues of the investigation. “She’s talking not just to people that she thinks would be most knowledgeable, but also if people reach out to her.”

Heldman said the investigation will be “as thorough as it can be,” but will also be finished quickly. By the end of the week, Heldman said he expects Scherz will have a full report to give Bardo.

“The independent inquiry by faculty athletics representative professor Julie Scherz is entirely appropriate and the Athletics staff is committed to learning from this experience and doing right by students,” stated Eric Sexton, director of Athletics, in a news release from the university on Saturday. “When the process is completed, decisions will be made to help move the women’s basketball program forward.”

Smith said she is glad more players are showing bravery by coming forward. She said she felt alone when she dealt with it at WSU.

“That’s a dark area in my life that I never wanted to bring back up and just kind of let it go,” Smith said. “And it hurt, too, because nobody listened to me and now the fact that other people are coming out and saying something shows that I’m not crazy and I wasn’t lying about what I was saying.”

In her first season at WSU, Smith said Albright would yell at her, but had “positive reinforcement.” Smith said she didn’t play much for her, but Albright would give her reasons for why she wasn’t playing and what she needed to improve on in order to play.

Smith said things went well when Adams first arrived at WSU, until about a month passed, when she said Adams’s demeanor and actions changed.

Smith said Adams was more, “You suck. You ain’t gonna be shit. You ain’t never gonna be shit.”

“I can take not playing,” Smith said. “I knowing why I’m not playing rather than verbal abuse and saying, ‘You’re not gonna play anyway. Why are you even here? You might as well go somewhere else.’

“It was just incidents of her belittling me,” Smith said. “[She’d say], ‘You’re not gonna be a good mother because you can’t remember a play.’”

Racial issues continued throughout her time under Adams, Smith said.

“She didn’t want white people on her team,” Smith said. “She only wanted black girls … She specifically said to me she didn’t want white girls unless they were swaggy. She says ‘swaggy’ or whatever. So, she said she gets along a lot better with black girls. She would separate them, like, put the black people on one team and the white people on one team … It was just, it was bad.”

Smith said that when the team ran plays in practice, Adams segregated players, putting black players on offense and white players on defense.

“So the black people always had to do the plays, run the plays,” Smith said. “She would not let the white people learn the plays or anything like that. I’m sure they were offended … After that, I was like, ‘Dang. You’re not even trying to hide it.’”

In one instance, Smith said she remembers a drill in which she wasn’t allowed to touch the ball. She said she “would just stand in the post” and take basketballs coming at her chest from Adams and an assistant coach.

Smith said her breaking point was when she had a physical altercation with a staff member, an assistant coach, who she said, poked her in the chest.

“She took her two fingers and poked them in my chest really hard to where all the anger that I had built up and I just wanted to do something,” Smith said. “But, in the back of my mind I, ‘I’m gonna lose my scholarship.’”

She said she had to be dragged to the locker room by teammates until she calmed down.

Smith said she remembered thinking, “I can’t take it. I just can’t take this no more. All the verbal abuse — how you’re not gonna make a good mother because you can’t focus on a play.”

After all the incidents between her and the coaching staff, Smith said she was diagnosed with depression.

“They took my spirit and my joy away, and I never thought that could happen,” Smith said. “It was like, ‘OK, I really need to leave. I can’t take this anymore.’”

Smith said she then approached Adams and told her of the poking incident with the assistant coach. She said Adams stood up for her staff even when other players saw what happened.

“When I did tell [Adams], she was like, ‘You just need to be more strong. That’s just how it is. That’s basketball,’” Smith said. “[Adams] was aware of it and still never did anything about it.”

Smith said her time with Adams was a learning experience that made her stronger, but that it was “hell” when she was at WSU.

“I know how strong I am and how much I could take as a person and that’s what people have to experience for themselves,” Smith said. “If you can take that abuse, then go ahead, by all means. Go ahead and take that abuse, but I’m not gonna take it.”

Smith said she took her mom and dad to meet with Adams, the athletic director and trainers to tell them she was leaving. She was met with resistance, Smith said. She said Adams pushed her to finish the season.

“I was like, ‘I’ll bring my lawyers into it,’ and she let me go,” Smith said.

Smith said that at the time, she questioned whether she should tell anyone her story. Nobody listened to her, she said.

“I went to the athletic director and all that other stuff and everybody thought I was crazy and couldn’t take the coaching staff,” she said.

In the release from the university Saturday, Sexton stated, “I feel badly that there is a perception among players that their complaints weren’t heard and acted upon. Their complaints were taken seriously.” Sexton’s comments were not made specifically in regards to Smith’s claims.

During the 2012-13 season, WSU reprimanded Adams and her staff for having the team do pushups on the court during halftime of a game. The reprimand let the players and the public know that coaches had acted improperly, Sexton stated in the release. Later, there were staff changes and close monitoring by Sexton and Becky Endicott, senior associate athletic director, according to the release.

 “Now it appears there were issues under the surface that we didn’t know,” Sexton stated in the release. “As soon as we were made aware of them, we took them seriously and started the process to gather further facts. I hope those who love Shocker athletics will be patient with us while we work through this difficult process.”

Smith said she has not been contacted by Scherz or someone from WSU regarding her time playing for Adams.

Heldman said he could not respond to specific allegations from a former player against Adams.

“That’s what Dr. Bardo has asked Dr. Scherz to do — is to gather all of this information together in a fair and logical manner,” Heldman said. “I know there’s not a great deal to say at this point because we’re trying to proceed in the fairest way possible.”

In the end, Smith said this could be a learning experience for Adams.

“I’m not knocking her at all, but there’s a certain way that you have to treat your players and at least care,” Smith said. “All these people are sticking up and showing the world, and especially Wichita State, that these women are not crazy in what they’re saying. It’s true.”