"During the recruiting process, Glenn initially stood out to me for several reasons. He made big promises—and to his credit, many of them were fulfilled. However, the support and attention I received seemed to have an expiration date. My freshman year, he was invested in my development and genuinely seemed to care. But once I became a sophomore, that dynamic changed drastically. I went from feeling valued to feeling overlooked, as if I were no longer useful. It became clear to me that he heavily favors his freshmen (he will not pay attention to you if you are not in the 1v8...which is mostly Freshmen). The environment became toxic, and instead of feeling supported, I felt like I was constantly under scrutiny. One particularly troubling incident was when he called me just to yell and curse at me. I no longer felt safe being alone with him. By my second year, I felt disillusioned and emotionally drained. I had the unsettling realization that the person I thought I could trust as a coach had manipulated me. His coaching style often involved pinning athletes against each other, fostering a cutthroat atmosphere rather than one of team unity. He once told us, “If you’re not getting injured, you’re not pushing yourself hard enough.” That mindset led to multiple career-ending injuries within our team. By my senior year, I hated the sport. This sport was my life for 10+ years and I hated it, all because of him. Burnout became common, and many recruited athletes didn’t stay long. I lost all respect for him during that time. While I did grow stronger in some ways because of the challenges, I needed a coach who had my back—not one who broke me down. I'm relieved to hear he is stepping down as the Alabama Head Coach, just for this girls' sanity. One other note, if you are a coxswain and not 100lbs or less, good luck. "

"Your freshman year Coach Putyrae helps develop you a lot, believes in the potential you have, and is always available for a meeting. However, not much can be said positively for the years after. I watched him change his training plan every year since I've been here, and now his mentality just seems to be that whatever team can squeeze the most meters into one practice will win NCAAs. Little seat racing done, and girls passing out at practice seems to be a weekly occurrence. While I am able to push myself further than I thought I could, doing 24K on the erg every steady state practice makes the team culture one of exhausted and burnt out athletes. I felt anytime an athlete brought any of this up to Coach Putyrae, he never felt he could make any change to make the athletes happy, and in turn didn't listen to them."