University of Mount Olive

"Believe the reviews. Avoid like the plague."

"We have experienced many coaches through lacrosse. I can hands down say that Heather’s coaching style is the bottom of the barrel. As a head coach you need to be a builder not a destroyer. There is a difference in hard coaching and destroying. She is the latter. Lacks communication and direction outside of reminding the players how bad they are doing. She will ruin a players love for the game. She is not capable of building team culture outside of her favorites. She over promises and under delivers. She provides lips service over coaching. When you have top talent wanting to walk away you have to look within yourself first. I believe that what she needs is to reflect. I think her knowledge is valuable. Unfortunately coaching isn’t all about ball knowledge and past playing experience. It’s about building young players up and shaping them into well rounded individuals that can thrive in a team environment. Thats where she misses. "

"Awful-Toxic. Start of this season 4-7. No one knows who is starting or playing until game. "

"There is so much to be said but to keep it short, run. She puts on a front during recruiting and runs her team off of fear and judgment. She has ruined many players love for lacrosse. If you are not a favorite good luck. "

"As the parent of a student athlete Heather talked a good game during the recruitment process and made everyone feel welcome and provided constructive feedback. Her winning record and obvious ability to produce a winning team was a big draw to the program. Red flags occurred later in the process which made us question her communication style and honesty but we trusted the process. Once the fall season started this trend continued and was reflected in the morale of the team. The aggressive nature of feedback and coaching style translated to frustrated players and aggressive filed play which set the team up for this kind of reputation in their conference which created hurdles. By the end of the spring season the morale of the players was very low with several hard working players barely seeing any field time with no constructive feedback to encourage improvement and unfulfilled promises. The emotional outbursts of the coaching staff directed at the players was not just behind closed doors and was concerning to witness and hear about. While her style was not a good fit for UMO I hope she learned from her experience there and can be successful with another program. Through it all I do believe she cared about the players on her team and wanted the best for them. "