A quick search of the Virginia State University women’s lacrosse Instagram page reveals few references to the 2024 season, the Trojans’ first as an NCAA Division II program in which they finished with a respectable 5-6 record.
Several now-former players and parents familiar with the inner workings of the program who spoke with HBCU Sports on the condition of anonymity claimed it was just one more retaliatory act in a school year filled with bullying, harassment, and intimidation from current head coach Ashley Lawrence, her assistant coach, and father Thomas Lawrence.
Peggy Davis, the school’s athletic director, was also a target of discontent among several players.
“My daughter wanted to be at an HBCU after being at a predominately white boarding school,” a parent of a player told HBCU Sports. “We loved the fact this would be the inaugural team. I was happy with what we saw, and I told Coach (Ashley) Lawrence, ‘I’m entrusting you with my precious cargo.’
“And I thought we were on the same page, but my daughter received treatment to the point she doesn’t want to play lacrosse anymore, and she’s been playing since the fifth grade. That’s very disheartening to have that taken from you.”
Parents and players went on to allege that Ashley Lawrence, a former high school coach and star lacrosse player at Howard before being named VSU’s first-ever coach in 2022, engaged in gaslighting, lacked the experience to run a collegiate team, and created a poor program culture.
“She’s really good at gaslighting. We had no structure. She was getting practice videos off of Instagram,” claimed a player of Lawrence’s coaching methods. “We were crying every day after practice. And now she’s trying to wipe out the entire class so no one can know what she did the first year.”
The same player alleged she was assaulted by a teammate a day after she and other teammates contacted Lawrence with concerns about a potential altercation.
“This girl threatened to fight me, and the coach did nothing about it,” a player on the team during the time of the reported altercation recalled. “All the coach told us was ‘stay away from her.’”
Virginia State players seek help to resolve issues
After the altercation — which was posted on the popular Twitter gossip account HBCUShaderoom — the player who was attacked pressed charges against her teammate, but the teammate filed a counterclaim. Per Virginia State policy, both women were removed from campus.
“If someone tells me someone’s going to fight, I immediately tell somebody, plus they lived in the same dorm,” the parent of the victim said. “She [Lawrence] wanted to put the responsibility on what my daughter could’ve done [to prevent the fight.]”
The victim’s family enlisted the help of Derrick Terry, executive director of Edvocare, as an advocate. However, he encountered resistance not only from the Virginia State athletic department but also from the school’s administration.
“I brought it to [Virginia State’s] attention on three separate occasions to mediate this, but I was ignored, and the parents were ignored,” Terry told HBCU Sports. “The only reason we eventually got a meeting was because a state delegate, Rozia A. Henson Jr., got involved, but [the situation] still wasn’t resolved.”
Both players ended up dropping charges against each other, and when the victimized player returned to campus, she said she felt alienated.
“As soon as my case was finished, the coach dropped all communication with me. She did not contact me until I filed a grievance against her,” the player said. “The athletic director told her about the grievance. When I came back to the team, the coach said, ‘I don’t know how this is going to work.’ It was really bad.”
Ashley Lawrence, Davis, and Virginia State President Makola Abdullah did not respond to HBCU Sports’ requests for comment.
‘All of my teammates are in therapy’
Another player claimed that both Ashley Lawrence and Davis handled another traumatic incident poorly and seemed to punish her in the aftermath.
“During the season, things just got weird. She was acting different, mean to everyone,” the player said. “The vibe during the season was that she stopped caring about us as players completely. I ended up getting a concussion and they begged me to come back to get through protocol. We had players who were hurt and injured, and she’d just say, ‘I don’t know, go see the trainer.’”
“We were not safe. Speaking up about the treatment we received was not allowed,” the player continued. “We’d constantly have remediation meetings, where the school counselors would say, ‘Your coach told us to do this. She says you all are having team issues.’ We collectively would say over and over, ‘The issue is not us. It is her.’
The player went on to claim that Davis told the team to stop complaining about Lawrence because she was allegedly “tired of hearing it” and suggested they leave if they didn’t like the way they were being treated.
The player then claimed that Davis told the group that “Coach Lawrence can do anything she wants to you all as long as it’s legal.’”
At the end of the season, the player met with Lawrence, and the situation came to a head for the final time.
“In spite of all the stuff I was going through, we had this end-of-the-season meeting, and she told me I was a terrible player, I was no longer deserving of the money she promised,” she said. “My mom called and asked why, and [Lawrence] said, ‘Just to be punitive.’ It was hard for me to wake up in the morning, let alone think about lacrosse. I put out what I put out on the field, and she didn’t care. That meant nothing to her. All of my teammates are in therapy.”
A third player also accused Ashley and Thomas Lawrence of mistreatment and detailed moments when Davis allegedly intimidated her while she was a student worker in the athletics department.
“When we first got there, there was a lot of body shaming,” the player said. “Ashley would comment on our bodies and our clothing, saying, ‘You shouldn’t be wearing this around men,’ especially since her father was an assistant coach.”
The player’s issue with Davis, she claimed, stemmed from the player’s clinically diagnosed ADHD condition, which she and her parent were still working on providing the university with accommodations for.
“Music is one of my accommodations; I’m able to focus on my work better,” she explained. “I didn’t have AirPods at the time, but big earphones, like the Beats set. In the athletics office, other people who worked with me listened to music, but she only yelled at me to take my earphones out. One time, she got in my face like she was going to hit me. She was definitely trying to intimidate me.”
The player also claimed she was suspended by Davis for asking a question during a meeting.
“Ashley was talking about a new handbook, and I asked if we could get a copy so we could know what the rules are, and Peggy cut me off and started raising her voice,” she said. “Not only did I get embarrassed, I got suspended, and nobody could give me a clear-cut reason.”
The player’s parent said they attempted to speak with Abdullah about Davis, who serves on the NCAA’s mental health advisory board. However, they were diverted to others in the school’s administration for counsel.
“We tried to talk to the president. Instead, they put me in touch with two other people, and when we met over Zoom, they suddenly disconnected the meeting. We never heard from them again.”
‘Not Black excellence at all’
A fourth parent alleged that Ashley Lawrence would make inappropriate comments about other players to other players.
“There was too much talking to parents and players about other players to create a narrative to protect herself,” the parent said. “You don’t set people up to be against each other. All the team had to go through sessions with a counselor. There were players who were not involved in anything. There wasn’t any trust.”
Another player confirmed the situation: “We didn’t have much privacy at all. Even if you confided in her about your personal struggles, she’d turn around and tell one of her players, our teammate, about what happened to someone else or their personal business.”
Several players now have either transferred from Virginia State or are no longer on the team. Their parents want the experiences to serve as a cautionary tale.
“For my daughter’s health, we had to walk away,” a parent said. “She did not have support there and it was not the experience that I hoped for her to have. I am grateful for another school to pick her up, but this ruined lacrosse for a lot of girls. That’s not any impact any Black woman should have on young Black girls. This is not Black excellence at all.”