To prepare herself for basketball practice, Marta Galic said, she spent a lot of time in the bathroom. She would splash cold water on her face, practice the Superman pose in the mirror and make sure to empty her bladder. "Practices felt like entering a war zone," she said.
Her frequent bathroom trips started after one particularly damaging practice during her freshman year at the University of San Francisco (USF).
The team was doing a challenging and repetitive layup drill. "People were collapsing on the floor," Galic said. And she had to use the restroom. Galic said she asked her coach, Molly Goodenbour, if she could step off the court three times with increasing urgency, but that Goodenbour and an assistant coach told her to complete the drill first. Eventually, she lost control of her bladder.
"My jersey, my pants ... everything was visibly wet," she said.
Galic said that she approached her coach again, asking to go to the restroom to clean herself up, and that Goodenbour refused.
Marta Galic's twin sister, Marija Galic, remembers that day vividly too, although Goodenbour would later say that she wasn't aware of the incident when it happened and that players are allowed to leave the court to use the restroom.
It had been Marta and Marija Galic's dream to play college ball in the U.S., but not long after their arrival at the Bay Area university, they say their love of the sport was overshadowed by the psychological challenges of a contentious relationship with their coach.
Researchers have found that athletes experience emotional abuse — a toxic pattern of verbal attacks, manipulation and/or controlling actions — more than any other form of harm. Yet, while schools and sports organizations have clear protocols for physical and sexual abuse, emotional maltreatment often falls through the policy cracks.
Among the dozens of athletes interviewed for this investigation, few achieved the accountability they sought. Marta and Marija's story reveals the lasting marks of psychological trauma, but it also points to a possible path forward for others navigating a system that has long failed to respond.
Sold on a dream
In their family, fraternal twin sisters Marija and Marta are seen as "the yin and the yang" — Marta the analytical one and Marija the creative one. Basketball — which they grew up playing on local courts in their hometown of Zagreb, Croatia — was their shared love.
As teenagers, they played for the U20 (under age 20) Croatian national team, and U.S. colleges took notice, including coach Molly Goodenbour from USF, whom Marta remembers meeting following a European championship game.
Goodenbour visited Croatia multiple times when she was recruiting Marija and Marta. According to Marta, they showed her around their hometown, bringing her to a seafood restaurant in the center of the city. They ventured to a mountain on the edge of Zagreb, enjoying the scenery and sharing traditional Croatian food in a rustic, cabin-like restaurant. Marta said they also spent time running through drills in a local gym.
Over dinner in the family's garden one night, Goodenbour told the twins' mother that her daughters would be in good hands at USF. "That was the decisive moment for my wife," their father, Kristijan Galic, said. "Everybody saw it in her face." Marta and Marija also remember this moment.
And USF offered another benefit: Marta and Marija could attend together. Goodenbour had offered each a full ride for five years. That meant, in addition to the school covering their education, Marta and Marija would have five years to play four seasons of Division I basketball.
Marta said she was excited about playing in the U.S., if a bit nervous. The chance to play with her sister for a coach they had both built strong relationships with gave each the confidence that they were choosing the right school.
" It seemed great, and there were just no signs that things were gonna go a completely different way," Marta said.
Freshman year in San Francisco
USF is a private, Jesuit school. Its women's basketball program competes in Division 1 of the NCAA, the highest level of U.S. college sports. Marta, a guard, and Marija, a forward, stand at 6 '0". When they arrived in 2018, most of their teammates were also freshmen and international students. It was Goodenbour's third season as head coach.
Almost immediately, the twins said, coach Goodenbour's manner towards them began to shift.
They said they were used to strict coaches, but this was different. Marta would later testify that Goodenbour called her "lazy," "worthless," and a "piece of shit," among other names.
Leilah Herrera, a player who left the USF team in 2021, said in a deposition video that the insults would fly every practice.
Herrera, who is African American and Puerto Rican, also said that then-associate coach Janell Jones made racially insensitive comments toward her. Jones has not responded to requests for comment.
Molly Goodenbour has declined repeated requests for an interview. She argued in legal filings that her comments to the twins were "solely about their basketball performance" and not personal. She said in trial testimony that she told players their performance was lazy and called them out when they quit in drills, but that she never called them names.
When she was asked about the incident when Marta urinated on herself, Goodenbour said that she felt really bad that this would happen to one of her players.
Goodenbour arrived at USF in September 2016, taking over midseason from her former Stanford University teammate, Jennifer Azzi. Azzi's team had made it to the first round of March Madness the season prior. But under Goodenbour, the team struggled to build on this success, logging only slightly more wins than losses in her first two seasons.
By the end of her third season — Marta and Marija's freshman year — the team's record was 7-24. Goodenbour's lawyer later referred to this year as being "very difficult and stressful" for the coach.
It was also difficult for Marija and Marta.
"You're fighting, you're giving your best, you're literally collapsing on the ground," Marta said. "And at the same time, you have someone hovering over your head saying, 'You're a f***ing idiot.' It was miserable."
Freshman year performance reviews
At the end of their freshman season, Marta and Marija walked into their performance reviews, each using their cellphone to secretly record their meeting with Goodenbour and associate coach Jones.
Marta said she was nervous that day and remembers her palms sweating. " I felt confined in that room," she said. In the recording Marta made of the meeting, Goodenbour tells Marta: "The next time you quit on something, I take your scholarship from you."
The NCAA does not allow a coach to take away a student-athlete's scholarship for poor performance or injury. Marta said she didn't know that.
Marija's meeting was similar to her sister's. In the recording Marija made, Goodenbour can be heard telling Marija that her teammates don't want to be paired up with her in drills, asking, "How do you deal with that? How do you look at yourself and say nobody wants me on their team?"
Marija and Marta filed a lawsuit against Goodenbour and USF in 2021, alleging that their coach was liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress, meaning that she intended to hurt them or had acted with reckless disregard for their well-being. The lawsuit also alleged that Goodenbour and USF were negligent, meaning the university and the coaching staff had a duty to care for the twins and had failed to do so.
Marija struggled with her mental health throughout her time at USF. "Suddenly I started getting these panic attacks. I'm having violent nightmares. I'm so depressed," she recalled. These kinds of struggles were a new experience for her: "I never thought I was that kind of person, and nobody really prepares you for that."
Her racing, anxious thoughts got worse when she was around Goodenbour. Marija suffered two mental health crises — one during her sophomore year, the other during her junior year — according to the legal complaint.
"I was crying myself to sleep every night, and I would dread waking up in the morning," Marija said. She recalled that there were times she wished she were injured so she could avoid practices.
A psychiatrist, who served as an expert witness for the twins in the trial, examined them and determined that they had developed "physiological and psychological responses to the trauma," including Marta's frequent trips to the bathroom, as well as "depressive symptoms," including Marija's suicidal ideation. While the twins had similar diagnoses, the psychiatrist found that Marta's long-term prognosis was better than her sister's.
The report concluded: "Marija and Marta Galic's psychiatric illness was caused by Coach Goodenbour's treatment on the USF Women's Basketball Team."
Limits to accountability
If a student-athlete alleges emotional abuse, there are a variety of people and institutions they can report it to: a trusted assistant coach or trainer, athletic department leadership, a professor affiliated with their team, a campus Title IX office, university leadership.
And they have a range of options beyond their university, including their sport's national governing body (for example USA Basketball), the NCAA and SafeSport, an organization that investigates allegations of abuse in sports.
But student-athletes face limits in their search for accountability.
The NCAA does not have an emotional abuse policy to cover the 550,000 student-athletes who compete each year. An NCAA representative said that schools have primary responsibility for student-athletes' safety. The NCAA declined multiple requests for an interview and instead pointed to its mental health best practices webpage.
SafeSport, which Congress created following the exposure of Larry Nassar's abuse, for the most part does not investigate emotional and physical misconduct allegations. Instead, it routes these allegations to national governing bodies, organizations that may lack resources or training to thoroughly investigate. Marta said she had never heard of SafeSport.
During their time at USF, Marija and Marta reported their coach's behavior to university staff: an assistant coach, athletic trainers, a school psychologist and athletic department leadership. So did their father. He sent multiple concerned emails about his daughters' treatment to Joan McDermott, USF's athletic director at the time.
USF investigated Marija's claims that Goodenbour had been bullying her. Then-assistant vice president of human resources, Diane Nelson (now associate VP), led that investigation, interviewing only Marija, Goodenbour and Jones. Goodenbour said in a deposition that in her interview, Nelson did not make her aware of any bullying allegations. "She simply had me describe my practices," Goodenbour said.
Nelson closed the investigation in December 2019, concluding that Goodenbour had not broken any USF policies.
Nelson did not respond to requests for comment. In a February statement, USF wrote, "While we acknowledge the seriousness of the issue, we dispute the allegations."
Sports attorney Martin Greenberg — who has represented student-athletes in two dozen similar cases — said that the best practice for an investigation into a student-athlete's allegation of abuse is for the university to hire an external, independent investigator. Greenberg pointed to an inherent conflict of interest when universities investigate their own employees.
No single independent, resourced institution has the authority to handle and investigate emotional abuse allegations against college coaches — and so experts say accountability can be elusive.
A symptom of this patchwork system is that coaches who are pushed out of one program can sometimes easily move to another.
Goodenbour was accused of similar behavior at previous programs, including at California State University, Chico and at the University of California, Irvine. At Irvine, she received a suspension in 2012 in an email from the athletic director, who noted that her "insensitive and abusive remarks" towards players was a pattern.
The Chico State allegations were covered by the Chico Enterprise-Record, which reported in 2006 that players accused Goodenbour of degrading them and directing obscenities at them. The outlet also reported that the university's investigation found no wrongdoing, and that Goodenbour said her coaching style required "a period of adjustment for all players."
When the USF hiring committee interviewed Goodenbour for the head coach position, its members did not ask about allegations of abusive conduct. Joan McDermott, the former athletic director at USF and a member of that committee, said in a deposition that this was because these questions had not been asked of other candidates.
McDermott said that Chico State's athletic director told her Goodenbour was a good and stern coach. The hiring committee does not appear to have contacted UC Irvine.
Former USF head coach, Azzi announced her resignation on September 15, 2016. USF offered Goodenbour the position less than two weeks later, on September 27.
The verdict
The twins' lawyer, Randy Gaw, said the power dynamic between a student-athlete and their coach was a key factor in his legal argument.
"If a random person off the street said the things or did the things to Marta and Marija, there would be no case because that person has no relationship, no power over them," he said.
"You can't just sue for random conduct like that. It's not expected to have an impact on you. But Ms. Goodenbour was a surrogate parent in many ways."
The trial went on for 10 days and on the 11th day, in July of 2023, the jury reached a verdict.
The decision was split.
In order to prove intentional infliction of emotional distress, the twins had to show that Goodenbour's behavior was outrageous and that they had each suffered severe emotional distress as a result of it.
On this first point, the jury ruled in favor of both Marta and Marija, finding that Goodenbour had either intended to cause the twins harm or had acted with reckless disregard for their well-being.
But it found that Goodenbour's actions had only caused Marija severe emotional distress.
It also found Goodenbour and USF grossly negligent toward Marija and awarded her $250,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages.
Gaw said he remembers Marija's joy when the verdict was read, "She felt validated," he said. "She told her story and a group of impartial people decided that 'Yes, what happened to you was wrong. You were not overly sensitive.'"
USF filed a motion to override the jury's decision, and a judge agreed, rescinding Marija's punitive damages financial award — but Marija appealed. And, last summer, a panel of appellate judges restored her award to the full amount.
That same panel also granted a re-trial in Marta's case after Gaw argued that critical evidence was tossed out that could have affected the jury's decision, including allegations that Goodenbour was emotionally abusive in previous programs.
Marta reached a settlement with USF and Goodenbour last month.
USF wrote in a recent statement to NPR, "We respect the legal process and the outcome of the settlement. While we disagree on several issues, we do not disagree on the importance and priority of the well-being of our student-athletes and everyone in the university community."
Goodenbour and now-associate head coach Jones are still coaching at USF. Last spring, the university renewed Goodenbour's contract through the 2028 season. In its February statement, USF wrote, "We continue to stand by the coaches and staff of the women's basketball program."
Beyond USF
The twins' paths had already begun to diverge when they were at USF.
After Marija's second visit to the campus counseling center her junior year, she did not return to the team. She graduated the next year, in 2022, with a degree in architecture.
Today she lives in New York City, where she recently earned an MFA in interior design. She said she can't bring herself to pick up a basketball anymore.
"I want people to know that it's not just the time you spend there with the coach," she said, "It's so many more years after that, and your life changes completely."
Marta graduated from USF in three years, summa cum laude with a degree in finance.
"I came here to play basketball. I came here all the way to get this education. I didn't want to quit. I didn't want to prove her right," she said, referring to Goodenbour. When she graduated from USF, Marta transferred her eligibility to Tulane University in Louisiana, where she played for coach Lisa Stockton while getting her MBA.
Stockton coached at Tulane for 30 years. Her teams appeared in postseason tournaments 21 times. She was inducted into the Conference USA Hall of Fame in 2023.
"There's a difference between challenging someone and pushing them to be successful and being hard on them and being unfair," Stockton said in a phone interview. "And I think you've got to know the difference."
Stockton retired in 2024. She said that most working coaches would likely be hesitant to speak out about the complexities of college coaching.
"Right now it's a really tough time to be a coach," she said. "It's really hard to do this job, where you're pushing people beyond what they think their limits are and you're trying to make them better."
NCAA athletes have been gaining power — some earn income for their play. Others have amassed large social media followings and prominent brand deals. And they can transfer to new schools relatively easily. Stockton said this can affect team culture and the relationship between an athlete and their coach. "It's a power dynamic that's really changed," she said, noting that this shift has made coaching more difficult.
Under coach Stockton, Marta rediscovered her joy for the sport and emerged as a team leader, serving as a captain. In her second season, she started in all 32 games, leading the team in three-pointers.
"It was night and day," she said. "Tulane really showed me what big of a difference it makes to have great people around you."
Marta said her sister watched all of her Tulane games from San Francisco, as she finished her final year at USF. For Marija, it was like seeing a version of herself out on the court, still able to enjoy playing the game that had required so much personal sacrifice.
This story was reported with support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism, the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and the Mental Health Parity Collaborative.
The Mental Health Parity Collaborative is a group of newsrooms that are covering stories on mental health care access and inequities in the United States. The partners on this project include the Carter Center and newsrooms in select states across the country.
If you have a story to share about emotional abuse in a college athletic program, you can reach reporters Julia Haney and Elizabeth Santos at haney.santos.reporting@gmail.com.
Copyright 2026 NPR
