Oregon volleyball head coach Carl Ferreira, amid controversy regarding the departure of five players from his team, spoke to the Emerald on Tuesday about the situation and the future of the program.
Ferreira revealed that he had taken a “couple weeks away” from the program recently, based on a conversation he had with Senior Associate Athletic Director Renee Baumgartner.
Regarding five players’ decisions to leave the team, Ferreira said he had no indications during the past season of the possibility of the moves, but did say he discussed it with juniors Diana Blank and Erika Widmark in December.
“I think they all wanted to be here,” he said. “I don’t think any one of them was tokenly going through the process. If you do that in Pac-10 volleyball, you’ll just get swallowed up pretty quickly.”
Ferreira, whose record is 30-61 in three seasons at Oregon, said the Athletic Department has been in full support of both the athletes and the program.
In addition, sophomore Alisa Nelson, who sat out the end of the season because of an ACL injury, told the Emerald on Sunday that she was released from the program and “wasn’t really given a clear answer.”
“The only thing they said was that they weren’t going to play me next year,” she said.
Nelson said that she was told of the decision by the two Oregon assistants — Rhonda Rust and Keith Rubio — and that Ferreira was not present at the time.
Ferreira was on his leave at the time of the decision, and could not attend, although Nelson said it was not communicated to her why he was not at the meeting.
“It’s that some of these things that transpired happened at the same time,” Ferreira said. “We didn’t know it was going to be as volatile as it turned out to be. Had I to do it over again, I definitely would have communicated that to her. I have since apologized to her personally.”
Nelson said she had been fully confident she would be able to return to play next season despite her injury at the end of this year.
“I’ve been staying in volleyball shape,” she said. “They know that.”
Ferreira was adamant that the decision did not occur because of the injury.
“We’d never do that to a student-athlete,” he said. “It’s impossible to not potentially look at it from that perspective, and maybe make that statement. I can tell you she’s the fittest athlete we have. She was going to make, or will make, a 100 percent recovery. That really had nothing to do with it.”
Oregon is set to return six players next season, from a team that finished 1-17 in Pacific-10 Conference play . Two will be juniors — Lauren Westendorf and Katie O’Neil — while there are no seniors slated to be on the roster.
Ferreira has three recruits already making their way to Eugene next season, and was confident his returning players would be able to overcome the decimation of the roster.
“I don’t think it’s easy,” he said. “The athletic arena forges unique relationships beyond the game. They all have great feelings and emotions about each other, and, with that being said, they’ve handled themselves in a real mature manner in doing everything they can to progress forward. But it’s not easy for them.”
Oregon’s recruiting process is far from done, as Ferreira looks to fill the newly
created void on the roster. The Ducks supported a 14-player roster last season.
To get to that point now, Ferreira would need to sign five more players.