Content warning: This story includes graphic sexual language and imagery.
Sheldon Bailey didn’t know what a “gash” was until he got to Winthrop, not until the head basketball coach, Gregg Marshall, started calling him and his teammates “gashes” regularly. A gash, Bailey learned, was a derogatory term for a woman’s vagina, and when Marshall really wanted to drive home a point, he’d accompany the slur with a hand gesture.
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“He’d fix his fingers like an OK sign, but real small,’’ said Bailey, who played at Winthrop from 2001-03 before transferring. “And then he’d say, ‘You’re a big, wet, soft, fucking gash.’’’
Nearly 20 years later, a source at Wichita State, where Marshall has coached since 2007, would describe a strikingly similar action by Marshall: “He’d hold his fingers and thumb pointing down and say, ‘Pink and wet, you know what the fuck that is.’”
As Wichita State conducts an internal investigation of its head basketball coach because of allegations of verbal and physical abuse, seven players from Marshall’s time coaching at Winthrop (from 1998 to 2007) painted a picture of Marshall — menacing, belligerent, prone to sudden outbursts — similar to the one former Wichita State players have detailed.
Multiple players allege that Marshall did the following while at Winthrop:
• He taunted one player who took prescription medication for his mental health. “Did you take your medication today? Are you stupid or just retarded?” he allegedly screamed at the player after he failed to grasp a drill.
• He screamed at a player who was underperforming that he’d “send him back to Africa,’’ shocking teammates. “You’re a white guy, in South Carolina where the Confederate flag is still flying on the statehouse, and you’re telling a proud African man you’re going to send him back to Africa?” one player said.
• During a road trip, Marshall criticized Josh Grant, mimicking his “soft” play, likening it to playing backyard ball with his girlfriend. “He started dancing around, all dainty,’’ Grant said. “After a couple of minutes of it, I got tired of it and said, ‘Well, fuck you.’ He didn’t like that obviously. Basically, he kicked me out, and I was walking out, he kind of pushed me. It wasn’t a full-on push trying to fight somebody, but kind of, ‘Get out of here.’’’
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• Marshall kicked a player out of practice, followed him out and then put his hands on the player, which was a common occurrence, the players said. In one oft-cited instance, Marshall got into a heated exchange with Derrick Knox, who yelled back at his coach. Marshall tossed him from practice, and as Knox was leaving, he muttered something under his breath. “Coach sprints from one bench to the other, where (Knox) was and jumps over the exercise bike that’s sitting there for players on the sidelines,’’ Eric Fisher said. “Basically shoves (Knox) and turns him around and is cussing at him. ‘What’d you say, motherfucker?’ They pulled (them) apart.’’
• During his first season at Winthrop, Marshall invited players to his house for his son Kellen’s second birthday. Kellen had gotten a new Wiffle ball set and was playing in the front yard with the players. The ball cracked, and the players told Kellen it was OK, they’d get him a new one. Marshall came outside and, upon finding out what happened, grew angry and grabbed one of his players by the shirt and threw him against a wall. The other players intervened and separated them. Dan Tollens, one of the players, recalled Marshall’s wife, Lynn, saying: “I just hate when he gets like this.”
• Following a loss to Campbell in 1999, Robbie Waldrop, a one-time All-Big South freshman selection, said Marshall refused to give the players their meals for the three-hour bus trip back to campus and instead walked the aisle of the bus degrading them one by one. Finally, he took an empty seat beside Waldrop, and for two-plus hours railed on him for his poor shooting. “Telling me how big a piece of crap I am, and that all the times I say I’m shooting this many shots in the gym, that I’m a fucking liar,’’ Waldrop said.
Marshall responded on Tuesday in a statement:
As I have stated previously, I am deeply committed to my players and the teams we have built together. I believe unequivocally in their value as athletes, as students, and as people. Any portrayal of me to the contrary is wrong.
Throughout my career as a coach, I have devoted myself to empowering my players to achieve their greatest potential. That’s the legacy I have built throughout my career – both at Wichita State and at Winthrop University.
My nine years at Winthrop (1998-2007) saw the Eagles achieve greater success than ever before. Not only did our players win on the court, but our team graduated all but one senior student-athlete during my tenure. I am extremely proud of what we built together at Winthrop and will always reflect fondly on my years there.
I acknowledge that my coaching style isn’t for everyone. I am passionate and energetic, and countless players have thrived on my programs and excelled in our team culture.
I am not demeaning or abusive. I have always pledged my full-hearted commitment to my team. I hope that no player or coach in my program ever doubts my respect for them or my investment in their success.
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As was the case at Wichita State, the Winthrop players said that Marshall’s behavior was so constant that they can’t believe higher-ups in the athletic department were unaware of it. After the bus berating in 1999, Waldrop left the team, spending more than a week back home in Gastonia, N.C., even as assistant coaches called, imploring him to return. Waldrop said he went to the athletic director, Tom Hickman, and told him everything. “ And he was like, hey, I understand,’’ Waldrop recalled.
Hickman initially responded to text messages requesting an interview but then stopped responding.
Bailey shared his concerns about Marshall with his father, Sam. Unbeknownst to his son, Sam Bailey wrote a letter to Hickman, sharing his son’s litany of grievances, including accusations that Marshall threw balls at his players, degraded his assistant coaches and threatened to pull scholarships.
Sam Bailey never heard from anyone at Winthrop, he said, but his son heard from Marshall. Angered by the letter, Marshall summoned Sheldon Bailey to his office. Sam Bailey said he told Marshall he didn’t know his father was writing the letter and that there was nothing more he could do. Marshall didn’t let it go, twice more asking Bailey about it, the third time as he was shooting in the gym. Sheldon Bailey suggested Marshall contact his father directly. “I’m never talking to that motherfucker again,’’ Bailey said Marshall retorted. Incensed, Sheldon Bailey told Marshall not to speak of his father that way.
Bailey transferred to Florida International and Waldrop joined Tollens at Division II Lees-McRae College — but plenty of players couldn’t leave. Some already had transferred to Winthrop; others were near the end of their eligibility or couldn’t find another place to go. In other words, they were stuck.
After reading about the allegations of abuse by Marshall at Wichita State, some Winthrop players contributed to a group alumni text chain, sharing their experiences.
“This shit is wild, though I am shocked it is getting any traction,’’ Grant wrote. “Why now? It is not like he has changed anything in 25+ years of doing this shit day in and day out.’’
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Marshall’s Winthrop players are grown men now, their basketball days long over. Most are successful — Bailey was LeBron James’ body double in “Space Jam 2.” Yet even now, some 20 years later, the former Eagles vividly recall Marshall’s demeaning and degrading behavior. They’re speaking out now, they say, because they were surprised that, despite his successes, Marshall hasn’t changed.
“This dude is so in my past, but at the same token, what about the other kids?” said one player, who asks not to be identified. “No student, no person should have to endure this. You wouldn’t allow your kid to get cursed out like that. I’m not acting like a snowflake. Players are used to getting yelled at, but nobody should have to endure people talking about their personal information, their medical information.”
The Winthrop players, like those from Wichita State, are quick to push back against assertions that Marshall’s behavior was motivational or part of an effort to try to make his players tougher. “The best analogy I can use, it’s like the difference between art and porn,’’ said the player, who preferred not to be identified because he feared speaking out could impact him professionally. “I played in high school for a coach who yelled and screamed and cussed during practice, but I never felt like he didn’t have our best interests at heart. This wasn’t that. It’s not something you can verbalize, but you know the difference.’’
“I was hoping he had changed his ways,’’ Sam Bailey said. “I saw at one point where UCLA was going to hire him. He’s been in the national spotlight, so I thought he’s probably changed. But apparently he hasn’t.’’
The former players acknowledged that Marshall is a great basketball coach. He took over a program in 1998 that had won seven games the previous season and won the Big South with almost the same roster and made the NCAA Tournament in his first season. “How does that happen?” Waldrop asked. “It’s the coach.”
In nine years at Winthrop, Marshall won the Big South regular-season title six times and made seven NCAA Tournament appearances. “He has great sets and defense and all that. He does a really good job. There’s a reason he has a lot of wins,” Grant said. “He’s got a great basketball mind, but 100 percent he’d be a lot more successful if he wasn’t a total asshole all the time. He has such a sense of arrogance. I don’t think he feels he can be touched.”
Marshall acknowledged in a statement released Oct. 9 that he’s “not for everybody.’’ But viewing Marshall’s behavior through the prism of adulthood, many of the Winthrop players, some of them now fathers, believe that Marshall crossed the line, a cruel coach as opposed to just a tough one.
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“This goes as far back as his coaching career,’’ Bailey said. “From the guys I’ve talked to at Winthrop, we all feel pretty much the same. It’s time someone shed some light on this. Whatever they’re talking about now, he’s done more than enough of that over the last 25 years. Maybe he doesn’t pay players or fraternize with coeds. But this stuff? This stuff, he totally does that.’’
(Photo: Streeter Lecka / Getty)