Gannon University

"She picks favoritism to her players and sometimes she even hates her favorites. She has a really weird toxic relationship. She adds her players on social media after they graduate and its kind of weird because they all talk poorly about her "

"During my experience, coach P was up and down. Like most people, had her good days and bad days. A lot of us feared coming to practice because we weren't sure what version of her we were going to get. We would thrive on days when recruits or administrators were coming to practice with us because that means that she would put on a "nice" front. I will never forget when she made us run sprints before a game because she noticed competitive/petty culture that she created between two girls during warmup. She lacks a lot of accountability for the environment she created. I will also never forget when a teammate, who was epileptic, got hit by a car before a game, was taken to hospital and Jennifer told us to stop worrying about our teammate and focus on the game ahead. She had her good days where she could have quality conversations about life. She did help her players through tough times, but then would use the same tough time against them. "

"During the recruiting process she comes across as nice and friendly. But as soon as we stepped on campus as freshman it became apparent that it was very different. We had an upper classman sit with us one night and tell us all the horror stories of the ranking, running, and verbal abuse they endured. She pulled athletes into her office to talk about issues to stir the pot. She tried to pit us all against each other by saying players were better than others in front of us. I ended up becoming extremely suicidal and lost almost 20 pounds in 3 weeks from the extreme running we were doing. I also had a diagnosed medical issue that she went over the university doctors head and had me run a running test I was specifically told I couldn’t. Seeing her receive so many awards from the university and IWlCA is sickening given what she puts her players through. After quitting an incident occurred. She told her player she “flagged” me so I wouldn’t be able to transfer elsewhere to continue playing. The things she says and does to her players is awful and I hope she never is hired elsewhere. Running is a punishment at all times by her even after a game in front of family and friends. She uses scholarships as a weapon to keep players quiet and force them to accept the treatment. My original freshman class had 4 girls leave and most senior classes only had 3-4 girls left by the end of their time at Gannon. "

"Hearing about what Jennifer Pawlowski does to her players is truly unsettling. She has told her players that playing lacrosse in college means you are an athlete first, then a student. She does not care about school work or exams but only lacrosse. She runs them down to the ground and will verbally talk about how “terrible” her players are to her assistant coach in front of her own players. Having multiple girls quit in one season should tell you about her personality and coaching ability. Jennifer’s choice of punishment is running. Running is a common choice of punishment but the way she does it is challenging. She is constantly making her girls run instead of focusing on what they truly need to work on. The girls on the team have great chemistry and are always supporting each other because they do not have a coach to give them the support they need."

"There’s about a million things I could say about Jennifer Pawlowski as a head coach, some positives, but majority of my experience surrounding her was mental abuse, manipulation, and physical injuries. My number one takeaway from my four years here is she doesn’t care about her players as a person or as a whole. It is merely transactional. If you are producing on the stat sheets, she will give you at the least the time of day. However, if even her best players are having a bad game, they arent met with support, encouragement, or coaching ques. Instead you are ignored, considered a disappointment, and sometimes even humiliated in front of the entire team. Between her mind games, white board rankings, and overall manipulation of pitting her own players against eachother both on the field and in their own personal lives and living situations, all while she is preaching a positive team culture, it’s hard to have a positive college experience with college athletics. I love the game of lacrosse and spent my entire life loving and playing this sport. However, I will not and do not miss Gannon Lacrosse. Not because of the players or the game, but because of a coach who ruined the game for me. It has taken me a long time to figure out who I am away from this sport because being here taught me that all my value as a person was based on performance. If I wasn’t performing on the field, my self worth plummeted and my entire day to day seemed pointless. This was reinforced by her behavior towards her players. I have life long injuries that my four years of college has given me. You can say it’s apart of the sport, but I would disagree. I have never heard of a team with some many injuries both before the start of a season and during a season. Sprints was used as apart of her mind games. Bad stick skills, sprints. Offense can’t score, sprints. Defense gets scored on, sprints. No communication, sprints. She was in a bad mood, sprints. I could go on. This was typically on top of her mental toughness weeks (which I think someone explained in another post) and daily conditioning (sometimes 2x in a two hour practice slot). Running is apart of the sport and getting in shape is definitely important, but not when players are expected/forced to run on injuries out of fear of what she would do if you didn’t. Also how does this improve the stick skills that majority of her players non existently have? Lastly, just to mention she would get made at her players for not using the athletic trainer and then get made when players were seeing the athletic trainer and following their guidelines and recommendations. Overall, my biggest recommendation is just choose someone else. The admin of gannon university have been seeing the same patterns, complaints from players, and the mental and physical abuse she puts her players through for over 5 years. It happened before my time here and will continue until she is fired/retires from this university. If anything I hope this helps shed some light so another player can be saved from the same everyday fate I faced while apart of this program. "