Photo courtesy of ESU Athletics
A former Emporia State women’s basketball team captain shared an audio recording of Head Coach Brian Ostermann repeatedly cursing and shouting at her during a meeting, just days before she was dismissed from the team.
On Dec. 2, 2024, Faith Paramore sent an email to ESU Women’s basketball parents, boosters and supporters as well as ESU President Ken Hush and administrators in the athletic department.
In her email, Paramore detailed a meeting she had with Ostermann, associate head coach John Ishee and assistant coach Erika Warren on Nov. 21. She indicated that Ostermann used profanities at her, that she was told not to speak at practice or ask questions.
She said that Ostermann told her he had “failed to make me a good basketball player in the 18 months he’s been at ESU” and “that I am ‘f…ing up teammates.’”
“I was silenced, not allowed to finish several statements,” she said of the meeting in her email. “Brian Ostermann was the authority figure in the room and continued to berate and belittle me, using profanity at the top of his voice. Instructions from Brian Ostermann was that I was not to talk to anyone about the meeting.”
Four days later on Nov. 25, following a game against Ottawa University where she was benched, Paramore was dismissed from the team.
“To this day I couldn’t tell you why I’m not on the team,” she told The Bulletin. “(Ostermann) never gave me a reason.”
Paramore meets with coaching staff
In a 34-minute audio recording of her meeting with Ostermann, attached to her Dec. 2 email, Ostermann can be heard shouting at and criticizing Paramore while using expletives.
At first, Ostermann appears collected. He begins by telling Paramore that the team “obviously…is not playing well” and that he and the coaching staff have worked to make adjustments internally and within the team itself.
“In looking back and reflecting on not just the past three months but the past 18 months since I took over, I don’t feel like we’re–we’re certainly not where I would like to be at this point in time, and so that’s why we’re making some changes,” he said.
Afterwards, he tells Paramore that he has been unable to get her to play “really well” and that she is “gonna have to play differently” and “do exactly what I want you to do.”
“There’s no more bullshitting around,” he tells her.
He proceeds to say that he is “not making any excuses for (his) failure nor (is he) making any explanation” and that he wants Paramore to be a part of the changes.
“Some of these things are non-negotiable…and you’ll have to figure out exactly what’s non-negotiable going forward,” he said. He indicates later that he has to repair the “cracks” in the foundation he laid during his first year as head coach.
“In me repairing those, that is going to affect every player on this team,” he said.
He goes on to tell Paramore that she needs to play better and that “there can’t be nothing going in there with us” when they walk onto the court. He says he is not looking for excuses or explanations.
Crying, Paramore can be heard responding that she is frustrated and angry with basketball, not about anything else the coaches may attribute that frustration to.
She is then cut off by a yelling Ostermann, telling her, “Your basketball sucks right now.” She responds with, “I know and that’s why I’m frustrated. You guys think it’s something else and it’s not. I hate going to the gym,” followed by an unintelligible sentence about practice before Ostermann begins yelling again, telling her not to come to the gym and to “be done.”
During the back and forth, Paramore yells that she shows up every day and works her “ass off” for Ostermann. Screaming, Ostermann cuts her off again.
“No, no you don’t. You don’t listen. You don’t listen for shit. You haven’t listened in two fucking years,” he said.
Paramore says she is asking “a question that everyone has” and Ostermann tells her to “stop asking fucking questions.”
Paramore says that no one knows what’s going on, that she’s the only one asking questions. Ostermann tells her that she’s the “only one that doesn’t know what’s going on” and that she doesn’t want to “accept it.”
He proceeds to tell her to “stop asking questions, stop coaching (her) teammates.” He then says, “You’re fucking up your teammates.”
“We’re playing like shit because it’s all getting fucked up because you’re always questioning everything,” he tells her.
He then appears to dig at the previous coaching staff, saying that he “finally” has “two assistant coaches that know what the hell is going on.”
Another coach present for the meeting, presumably Ishee, later asks Paramore if she knows how to win. Ostermann cuts Ishee off screaming “The answer is fuck no. You don’t. You know what? I know.”
He then tells Paramore she always has to have the last answer and “there will be no more last answers” or rephrases because everytime she rephrases he feels like it “screws things up.” He tells her to let him handle the team because she has enough to worry about regarding “how the fuck you play.”
He then apologizes for cursing, and follows up with “but sometimes we have to have a little emphasis in our words to get our points across.” He says there will be discipline and if Paramore cannot handle discipline then she “can’t handle what’s going to happen.”
A while later, Ostermann tells Paramore she is not being the player that she is and that he has Paramore “so fucked up it’s unbelievable.” He then apologizes for letting her playing go on like “that” for “so long.”
“And, really, when you walk out of here, you shouldn’t tell anybody shit, but you haven’t figured that out yet either,” he then tells Paramore. He goes on to say that she needs to stop talking to others about what happened during games or what could have been done differently, telling her she does that because she “want(s) somebody to fucking feel sorry for (her).”
Toward the end of the meeting, Ostermann tells Paramore that she is going to do things his way or she’s not and, later, that he needs to “run this team the way (he) need(s) to run it.” Paramore asks him if she’s “good” to leave. He responds with, “Oh, I don’t know. Are you?”
Paramore is dismissed from the team
After her meeting with Ostermann on Thursday, Paramore and her parents met with the coaching staff on the morning of Friday, Nov. 22 to discuss what occurred in the meeting.
She says that, unlike most parent meetings, they did not meet about playing time.
“It was about the fact of ‘why would you treat me like that as a person?’ It wasn’t even about basketball,” she told The Bulletin.
In this meeting with her parents and the coaching staff, Paramore said that Ostermann denied using expletives toward her when they met previously. She indicated that they did agree that she was told she could not speak and he later said “he may have said something a few times” in regard to using expletives.
“We also learned I would not be playing that night,” Paramore said in her email.
Paramore says she “did exactly as (she) was told.” She did not speak Thursday in practice following the meeting or Friday during the game. She did not speak at all Saturday or Sunday. Monday afternoon, she received a text from Ostermann that he wanted to meet with her after ESU’s game against Ottawa.
“(I) didn’t play again in the game and (Ostermann) kicked me off the team that night after the game,” she said.
Former coaching staff raised concerns about Ostermann
Paramore is not the only person who has brought up concerns about Ostermann and his conduct. Following Paramore’s dismissal, former ESU assistant women’s basketball coach Brianna Bogard, who left after just one season of working under Ostermann, emailed the Athletics Department and ESU President Ken Hush about her concerns with Ostermann’s behavior and his treatment of players, saying she believed “he has treated players in a manner that appears inappropriate and detrimental to their morale and development.”
“As someone who values the well-being and development of student-athletes, I believe it is important to bring this matter to your attention,” she said.
In her email, sent on Nov. 27, 2024, Bogard said Ostermann “found joy in trying to break (players) down mentally” and she and former assistant coach Tyrie Hill-Thomas would often have “one or more players come into our office extremely emotional.” She alleged that he saw detailed questions from players as challenges to his coaching.
“He was not welcoming in holding a conversation with players or staff when they had questions about the ‘why’ or wanting a further understanding of a concept,” she said.
Bogard also referenced her own treatment from Ostermann in the message, alleging that he told her it “would have been nice to know in the hiring process” that she has dyslexia. She noted instances where Ostermann allegedly told her and Hill-Thomas that they were bad at their jobs in front of the team and that he often told them they should “just go back to coaching at the NAIA level.”
Bogard detailed one interaction with Ostermann where he became angry at her for going out to dinner with her parents after the first game of the 2023-24 season, which they had flown in for.
“He ended up throwing a fit that I was out to dinner with them and not responding to his text messages, he stated I should have eaten dinner with them earlier,” she said. “He never told us that we were expected to be ready for a meeting to be called at any hour of the day. He told me that I need to think about my dedication to the program after that night.”
She went on to say that Ostermann “made it clear to the staff that he thinks ‘mental health’ is a cop out” for players and it is her belief that “Brian Ostermann shows no intention in changing his ways.”
In a phone call with the Emporia Gazette, obtained by The Bulletin, Bogard said she believed Ostermann’s actions were abusive. She indicated she had a “subtle conversation” with Senior Associate Athletic Director Colleen Mischke about her concerns before she left the University. She also indicated she had asked Athletic Director David Spafford to have a conversation, but that he “seemed busy” and never reached out to her. When she emailed him about the matter, she said the only response she got was one acknowledging that her message had been received.
“I don’t want this to happen to other people”
Paramore says that she was “shocked” about the way her meeting with Ostermann and the other coaching staff played out. She says that no conversation she had with Ostermann before the meeting has ever been “quite to that extent.” Everything brought up in the meeting, she contends, had never been brought to her attention prior.
“If it had then I would’ve done what I was told,” she said. “I didn’t know asking questions was an issue or speaking out in general, I guess, was an issue.”
Administrators of ESU athletics never responded to Paramore’s email, but she was able to meet with Mischke after reaching out about the incident. She still does not know why she was dismissed, but says her “heart” in putting her experience out there is to simply prevent the same thing that happened to her from happening to others.
“I coach little girls, and I would go through this ten times again so they would never have to,” she said.
In January, Ostermann was suspended from his coaching duties for two games. Ishee took over for Ostermann for games against the University of Central Missouri Jennies and the Washburn Ichabods.
The Bulletin contacted ESU Athletics via phone for comment on the matter, but was unable to make contact.
During her time playing basketball for ESU, Paramore earned the MIAA Academic Excellence Award for her 4.0 GPA. During the 2023-24 season, she was named an MIAA Scholar Athlete and earned Third Team All-MIAA honors. Between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, she averaged 11.6 points and 6.4 rebounds per game and made 47 starts.