Suspended coach speaks out

Melissa Batie-Smoose felt compelled to take a stand against a man’s presence on the San José State University women’s volleyball team roster.

As the Spartans’ associate head coach, she has paid a steep price for doing so.

In an apparently retaliatory move, San José State suspended Batie-Smoose before the Spartans’ Nov. 2 match against the University of New Mexico. The suspension, coming days after Batie-Smoose filed a Title IX complaint against SJSU, is indefinite. However, OutKick reported that Batie-Smoose had to turn over her keys and school ID, meaning she could soon lose her job.

Batie-Smoose’s Title IX complaint reportedly asserted the university had created a toxic culture for its female volleyball players by showing favoritism to senior outside hitter Blaire (formerly Brayden) Fleming, who is male.

“For speaking out, that’s what I get,” Batie-Smoose told me. “I think they’ll do anything on that side to protect a male player.”

Fleming has played for SJSU all season, and his presence on the team has proven advantageous for the Spartans: As of Nov. 6, the senior was tied for the Mountain West Conference lead in kills—volleyball parlance for point-scoring shots—with 217.

But Batie-Smoose says Fleming’s presence on the team is unfair for other players. Due to concerns about the male hitter, multiple teams from within and outside the Mountain West have forfeited matches against San José State this season. One school, Boise State, has forfeited twice, declining to play its final regular-season match against the Spartans on Nov. 21.

Thanks in part to those forfeits, San José State was 13-3 as of this writing.

“It’s a horrible situation for those teams to be in,” Batie-Smoose said. “These women have worked their whole lives to be Division I athletes, only to have these opportunities taken away from them. They want to play those games against those teams.”

One of Fleming’s teammates, Brooke Slusser, has also been vocally critical of SJSU’s policy of allowing a male player on the team. The Spartans’ senior setter added her name in late September to a lawsuit aimed at compelling the NCAA to keep men out of women’s sports. Slusser previously told WORLD she worried about a player being hurt on the court, estimating Fleming slams shots at speeds of around 80 mph.

Like Slusser, Batie-Smoose arrived on San José State’s campus in 2023. And like Slusser, the coach said she would never have come to the Northern California school had she known the Spartans had a male player on their roster.

“It went against everything I believe in,” Batie-Smoose said. “I’ve coached women for 33 years. It goes against everything I’ve fought for.”

Batie-Smoose said SJSU has accused her of violating the federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and other federal and state privacy laws that limit the disclosure of student information—including sexual orientation and gender identity—without student consent.

Slusser took to X last weekend to lament the latest ugly turn in an already tumultuous season.

“My assistant coach spoke truth to protect my team. Then … they fire her,” Slusser wrote. “They took away the only safe space we had in the program. Because she knew that it was right to stand up for the 18 women on the team. Not one man.”

Batie-Smoose applauded Slusser for speaking out at great personal cost.

“She’s been very courageous from the get-go,” the coach said. “Nobody supported her. The university needed to support her and to support the rest of the women on the team.”

Because San José State did not do that, Batie-Smoose did it via her complaint. “I had to do it,” she said. “I couldn’t take it for one more minute.”

The coach understands that taking a stand may have ramifications for her career.

“This is why coaches don’t take this stance: They get suspended. It’s a career-ender,” she said. “But we have to do what’s right to save women’s sports. If we don’t do it, women’s sports will completely change.”

As for what her future holds, Batie-Smoose isn’t worried: “I’ll land on my feet. I had to do the right thing so evil will not prevail. I hope in the future more coaches will have the strength to come forward—we need it.”