GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
MISSION — As some parents and onlookers have rallied to support Mission Veterans Memorial volleyball coach Diana Lerma in the wake of her Oct. 15 reassignment, a second group allege a long-standing pattern of player mistreatment, including excessive profanity and bullying.
While Lerma’s supporters call the protest an attempt to punish Lerma for not giving the deriding parents’ children more playing time, the seven sets of parents who stand against her feel the reassignment was deserved despite the success Lerma has achieved at Mission Veterans. Even without their longtime coach, the Lady Patriots are looking to put together another deep playoff run, beginning Tuesday with a match at Brownsville Pace.
Mission CISD declined comment on the reasoning behind the move. Lerma, athletic coordinator David Gilpin and assistant/interim coach Vivian Ray have steadily declined comment throughout the process, which included two suspensions leading up to Lerma’s dismissal.
“She wasn’t running it like a school,” said Melissa Lopez, aunt of varsity player Alex Jimenez. “She was running it like the army.”
The parents say they have heard Lerma’s mistreatment personally, citing a recording secretly obtained by one of the players as the coach addressed her team. A source provided The Monitor with a copy of the 28-minute recording, in which Lerma is allegedly the speaker, via email.
In the meeting, Lerma tells the players that she will always choose her starters based on merit.
“Nobody comes and questions me about playing time,” Lerma said. “If we start going, ‘Oh, let’s go up against coach Lerma.’ There’s the door. You’re going to lose, mija. You will lose. You need to go on to another sport, because my job is to win.”
Addressing complaints about playing time, specifically from parents, Lerma frequently used expletives while singling out certain girls.
She chastised any player or parent who would attack her standing in the program.
“I don’t care if they take me all the way to the superintendant,” Lerma said. “The trophy is still going to come.”
The players responded to Lerma’s criticisms calmly, talking about ways they can improve and things they need to do to expand their role. The parents, however, were alarmed by the contents of the meeting.
“If you were to hear the audio as a parent, or just as a human being, you would be floored,” Lopez said.
The parents said their complaints eventually led Lerma to receive a two-match suspension in early September. But rather than calming her down, the parents say it only riled her up.
Another parent, Jaime Salinas, said it was about this time that his daughter, who had quit the team earlier in the season, was attempting to return to the program. Salinas said Lerma, the school’s principal and his daughter met and drew up a contract outlining the circumstances for her to return to the JV team, only for Lerma to override those conditions.
Salinas’ daughter was forced to run 43 infractions in a designated time, which Salinas said made it nearly impossible for her to return to play before the end of the season. Salinas’ daughter was supposed to receive a uniform and travel with the team, but Lerma did not follow through on those conditions.
Salinas said Lerma also singled out his daughter and humiliated her in front of the team, just as she had done earlier in the season.
“My daughter came home, and she was torn apart,” Salinas said. “(Lerma) did this in front of everybody instead of being more professional about it and pulling her aside and telling her. … It’s just not tolerated. It can’t be tolerated.”
Before Mission Vets’ season opener Aug. 11, three players were removed from the varsity roster for undisclosed reasons, leaving just eight players.
Many have stepped forward in support of Lerma. In the two days after news of her reassignment was reported on RGVSports.com, The Monitor’s high school sports website, on Oct. 15, “#FreeLerma” was posted to Twitter 45 times, with some tweets receiving more than 100 retweets. One of those posts came from Lady Patriots freshman Jackie Howell and was retweeted by junior D.D. Ibarra. Freshman Makenzie Gerlach also retweeted a “#FreeLerma” post, while Lerma’s daughter, Gabby, posted “#FreeMommy.”
“I’m just going to say I’m playing the rest of the season for her,” Gabby said after the team’s Oct. 17 match, the first since the reassignment, before adding that she and the rest of the players had been told by school officials not to comment on the situation.
Lerma is one of the most successful volleyball coaches in the Valley. Mission Veterans is a perennial playoff team, winning 11 district titles and advancing to regionals four times in the past 14 years. No Rio Grande Valley program matches that success.
Gerlach’s mother, Cari, said she was sad parents in the program had pushed a winning coach out of a job through private meetings while other parents were kept in the dark.
“Everybody is left to speculate. If (coach Lerma) did something wrong that was legitimate, put it out there and quit the guessing game,” Cari said. “It’s hard to explain to my child, or anyone else on the team, not knowing if there is a legitimate complaint or if it’s parents dictating the system.”
She expressed concern that parents were trying to maneuver their daughters into varsity spots or increased playing time rather than letting the coaches and players dictate the rotations on the court.
“They ruined it for my daughter,” said one parent who chose to remain anonymous. “This is high school, and she let it go too far because the parents wanted their children to have more playing time.”
A lack of information is also a chief concern for some parents. Throughout the season, MCISD and school coaches and officials have been silent regarding the charges against Lerma and their validity.
“Why aren’t we privileged to hear the whole story?” said Roland Puente, a parent of a JV player. “That starts from the very top. … They’re creating a hostile environment for our girls.”
Since Lerma’s reassignment, some previously departed players have started to return to the program. Salinas’ daughter played in the first JV match after Lerma’s reassignment, on Oct. 17. Isela Rodriguez, a senior, was that day listed on the varsity roster for the first time since last season.
Amanda Contreras’ daughter left the program before the start of the year, but Contreras said they’ve been having discussions about her potentially rejoining the team.
“There’s so many things that played into this,” Contreras said. “They can’t even be counted on two hands. If you would know all of that, it would just open up. We’re just trying to get these girls to move forward and heal.”