"If you’re thinking about playing for Coach Tony Trifonov at LIU, I think it’s important to know what the experience is actually like. The whole situation started off badly. The coach who recruited me was fired out of nowhere less than a month before the season started, and it felt very unfair. From what we understood, it was because Tony had a connection with the athletic director from years ago. After that, we went almost two weeks of preseason without any coach at all. We had no communication and were basically running open gyms by ourselves, not even knowing where Tony was or when he was coming. When he finally got there, he immediately started talking badly about the previous coach, saying he “didn’t know what he was doing.” He also told us multiple times early on that he could just replace the whole team, which created a pretty negative and uncomfortable environment. Another big issue was academics. All of us had already built our class schedules in the spring to fit around early practices so we could take the classes we actually needed. He changed practice to 3 PM and straight up said he wouldn’t make it early because he doesn’t like waking up early. Because of that, I had to take classes I didn’t need and couldn’t take ones I did need, and I know other girls were in the same situation. Traveling was also really disorganized. There were times we almost missed flights because he didn’t seem to know what was going on. He relied heavily on our athletic trainer for things like where we were eating or even how we were getting back, which isn’t even her job. In practice, it honestly felt like his wife (the assistant coach) was the one actually running everything. I was injured for most of the season with a fractured rib, and instead of support, Tony would spend practices talking my ear off and even showing me random music videos. On top of that, he didn’t believe my injury was real. He told teammates in one-on-one meetings that he thought I was faking it to get a redshirt year and said he couldn’t trust me because he didn’t recruit me. When I brought this up in my exit meeting, he got very defensive and started talking badly about my teammates, saying they were lying. Throughout my injury, he also made comments implying I didn’t get hurt in practice and suggested things like I “got drunk and fell,” which was completely false. The injury happened during practice. Overall, the experience was really disappointing. There was a lack of communication, organization, and respect, both as an athlete and as a student. It’s something I think people should seriously think about before committing."

"Many players left Chicago State because of him. Only players who played stayed. He is very pessimistic and negative. Difficult to say any pros. "

"Extremely negative, talks about players to others, yells and makes remarks. Does not develop or coach players. Focus only on player who play. Poor communicator. Has made multiple players cry. Players have quit because of his negativity and disrespect. Kicked players off the team just because. Most toxic coach witnessed. He tells media he is trying to change the culture and have player buy in but his culture is NEGATIVE. Just watch games of him on the sideline. You can see it. Does not bond with the players. No team bonding. Doesn’t help the family are apart of the staff. Texts/calls players all times of the day. Destroyed the VB program. See he only had 9 players at Chicago state because they all left!"

"He is knowledgeable in volleyball, but he is very creepy with the girls. I had a hard time being coached by him because him and his wife are very touchy feely. Let alone he’s had issues in the past with dating players"