"The coaching staff at WSU is notorious for lying to players. Rely on tactics that no longer work, and fully relies on individual players with no goal of playing or building as a team. Assistant coach Matt Kagan also does not get along with players and nobody wants to play or work hard for this staff. Transfers and incoming freshmen beware. Also lack of communication and expectations on the field are very unclear. Absolultely 0 team culture and the team struggles because of it. Players do work very hard and want to be successful which is a good thing and it is a competitive enviorment which some people may thrive in. "
"Creates a BAD team culture. Talk about negative and just downright mean. I overheard her talking about several of the female athletes negatively on a daily basis . And never anything constructive, always something meant to make the other person feel bad if they heard it. Very two faced, very mean, overall not recommended for any position in my opinion."
"No this coach does not believe in you. He is not understanding, not a good leader, does not develop promote or encourage a team bond, and overall does not care. Do not run for wsu xc as a woman. You will be disappointed."
"Where do I even start with Charlee? She is the least qualified, least caring, absolutely worst coach I’ve ever had. And Wayne Phipps was a close second. She knew absolutely nothing about anything and just could not coach. I communicated so much with her and gave here a gold mine of information about how my training was going. She did nothing with any of this information and would continuously ignore us, never being bothered to do anything for us. You could ask her a question about anything and she would never have a real answer. The only thing she could do right was time us. That’s literally the ONLY thing she could do because she couldn’t even drive well (almost crashed us several times). "
"I have tried to repress my memories from my experiences here as they have ruined me mentally and physically. But I believe this deserves to be heard. Wayne Phipps does not care about his athletes. He does care about anything but a paycheck. He ran me into the ground for my whole career and now I have permanent medical issues that I am dealing with as a result. Wayne does not know how to coach women. He would overtrain all us with no explanation. We all had the exact same workouts regardless of our individual needs and would give us all the exact same coaching advice. The only difference was our mileage. Now the men? They would get individualized advice. I worked so hard, put in extra hours in the training room, worked with the strength and conditioning coach on my own time, and I never got anything in return. I began having medical episodes while I was on the team, sometimes in races, and both my coaches got mad at me and blamed me for them and cut me from the travel team. These episodes were worsened by the rampant over training. We only had one easy run a week. The rest of the week was tempo, speed work, long run (expected to be progressive) mid week progressive long run, and easy run with speed intervals after. Sometimes we did 2 hard workouts a day and we were all completely destroyed. I went to his office and asked him to write me different workouts because the workouts in high school made me faster than his did. He said this wasn’t high school anymore and that I had to deal with it. Yup. That’s a great coach. You cannot train women in this manner. This is why were all super overtrained and every single one of us was injured. Not to mention we had over 20 hours of practice a week, he would change our practice locations and times at the last minute all the time, he ignored you if you weren’t fast even though it was his fault. He would also force us to request activities on our days off, basically making us go to things that were supposed to be optional according to the NCAA. We filled official complaints with the head of athletics and they did nothing. He needs to be fired and he needs to go. I will not get into the more traumatizing experiences I had including being left behind on one of our meet ups but I will forever be trying to forget what I experienced here. Above are the basic details that anyone should know. Do what you will with that information."
"If I could put a 0 star for honesty I would. As a former student athlete of his he will lie to young kids faces as long as it benefits his paycheck and tenure. Micromanager who is way too old timey and out of touch with his athletes. Also inherited a fantastic hurdle program and has gone nowhere but slowly downhill with his tenure. The best thing I can say is he’s genuinely invested in what he does, however that’s far overridden by his lack of updated knowledge, and more so by his tendencies to micro manage staff to the point of leaving."
"Matt Kagan got fired from Oregon State. When he came on at Oregon State, he brought a very intense energy which the team responded well to. However, he treated players very poorly. He told players that were injured to their face that they did not matter, he tried to make players get other players on the team to quit, and more. During a practice one time, he got in the assistant coach's face at the time and they almost started physically fighting. He was the worst coach I have ever had, and OSU made him quit. He doesn't know anything about being a goalkeeper and he is the goalkeeper coach at Washington State. He is a guy that didn't have much of a playing career at all, and decided to become a coach, which is totally fine- you don't have to be a great player to be a good coach. But, he treats players very poorly and has a very big ego. He told players at Oregon State that we were not allowed to be injured. If you were injured, you got into trouble. He is an abusive coach and has no room in the women's game. "
"The Campus for a Athlete that likes wide open Spaces is awesome. Small City, proud tradition, supporters everywhere . Was flying to games out of state and kept hearing constant "Go Cougs" calls everywhere from former graduates ect when you are wearing your Coug gear when traveling. A bit of a partying school just visit on a Saturday morning go down greek row and see the aftermath ( cleaned up after ever day though). Area Culture is small community looking out for its own mentality including its students which are big part of their local community. The Coug Community is a real experience that is real and can be felt.
My kid was connected with player that was on probation , so not the best ambassador to show a new recruit but chosen by coaching staff. Nice person but was not able to give the best experience on a overnight visit to incoming student. "
"Latest Version of this coach is back to his old ways of constantly changing financials of most of his promises to players. Tells players and parents what they want to hear and then later changes financials. Tells players everything is good after Spring Season and then when fall comes changes all financial promises without telling any players there is a change, they sign their paperwork in August and then parents get unexpected Bills on education and Living expenses. HE has a long history lying to parents and players all the way back to his 2nd years as Head coach. He has a disrespectful bullying attitude towards players so they are afraid to question him about financials along with never answering emails about why financials have changed. Even if players follow all rules of team, School, and are willing to work at anything to get better. He chooses to only develops his preferred players and rest of players watch practices if he does not believe they are " Quality Players" . by a goal or more multiple times against better culture programs that only have less then 6 shots on goal or less) Watch some games and see the 20-36 shots on goal individual mentality that has been created. Possession is individual based along with defense which is really sad as there is some quality players they want to succeed. There is no thought of quality shooting vs quantity ( stats don't lie). Their are some great players that are good people but their is a horrible culture created when coaches create a i dont want to hear from you culture and win at all costs mentality. Style of play is all individual , how can this build a positive team Culture with Heart and caring about each other. 2022 results and stats tell that system is designed as individual play and he is not developing team just attempting player pment.
Several have moved away from program or re committed to another college . Program has had winning ways and players have gone professional in past so if thats all you care about it could be a great place.
"
"Terrible team culture, Insesnitive, favoritism, would single out players and embarrass them, unfair, unjust practices (turn a blind eye to players committing violations)"
"There were always constant problems and tension among the team because of the coach. Even his staff does not appreciate working for him and players do not truly listen to him. There is not a culture of respect or excellence but rather of fear and frustration. He will work with you if you have personal problems but expects you to be the exact same person on the field despite those problems. There is also never any room for error. I was a four year starter and wish I had transferred. "
"Burdette does an amazing job with motivating the team and his precise acumen for a statistical based approach to game strategy. In a highly intense atmosphere, he has a keen ability to bring out maximum performance of student athletes."
"I have followed this program for several years. Jen and her staff do incredible work and bring a family oriented coaching style to the table. She and Burdette and their assistants have created a sustained, successful program that cares for players. "
"the best decision of my life was to come to WSU and be coached by Wayne, he is a super knowledgeable and motivational coach that drives every one of his athletes to be great!"
"Coach Ethridge is not only an incredible basketball coach but also a great person. She truly does care about her players bigger than basketball. She wants us to walk out of her program as better people AND basketball players. "
"Coach Ethridge is very knowledgeable, also, if you do not do something right I am sure she will be honest with you and tell you what the reality is, while I was playing for her I appreciated that honesty and direct approach. Her comments during practice are well balanced, she will correct your mistakes or tell you a good job depending on situation."
"Coach Ethridge has incredible knowledge of the game and understands what it take to be great. Not only is she a phenomenal coach but also a person. Playing for her is bigger than basketball, she truly wants her players to gain life lessons that will better equip us for the real world. I am very thankful to play for Coach Ethridge. "
"Matt Kagan was the head coach at Oregon state while I was there. He was a horrible coach. He was a super intense coach, which actually a lot of us appreciated, but he was so unprofessional, and manipulative. He told us we “weren’t allowed to get injured” and told us we shouldn’t ask to go to the doctor. There was one instance where I was getting my blood drawn after my soccer obligations were over for the day in the summer time. I did this because I got a MRSA infection in my knee (due to not being able to see the doctor). He called and my roommates and demanded to know where I was. He called me while I was in the doctors office multiple times. Then at practice, he screamed at me and told me “he needs to know where I am at, at all times”. He almost got into a fist fight with our assistant at the time, getting in his face, screaming “I WILL SEND YOU HOME TO YOUR FAMILY”, as he was from the south. He tried to get the players kick the injured players off the team if they were on scholarship since they weren’t being “useful”. All he did was scream at you. He lasted two years at Oregon state and got fired as a head coach. He has no room coaching in womens soccer. He can’t handle the pressure, and honestly, didn’t have that much soccer knowledge. We did better the year he took over just due to him having higher expectations of us, which again, we liked that piece, but the way he went about it was awful. He did a lot of horrible things that I won’t put on here. He is now a goalie coach at WSU, lol. "
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