Statement from coach Mike Lotief regarding his recent termination from the Louisiana-Lafayette softball program, made through his attorney John E. McElligott, dated November 19, 2017:

We are saddened that ULL continues to bombard the public with misstatements and lies and half-truths designed to justify its ill-advised decision to terminate Coach Mike and to cover its flawed and useless HR investigation wherein they forgot or ignored witnesses: including members of the current team like D.J. Sanders or Alyssa Denham or Aleah Craighton or Summer Ellyson, or Chelsea Lotief, and many, many others who were on the bus or in the locker room and instead relied primarily on the statements of four players who are not even on the present team and who graduated in June 2017 and who when they filled out their exit interviews at the end of last season confirmed: if I was recruited today, I would 100% choose ULL again; that my coaches were 100% concerned about my well being; and during my time at ULL I would rate the coaching staff as 100% excellent as far as coaching & instruction.

The same University that failed to provide its athletes with an athletic trainer and failed in the simplest tasks as cutting the grass used a sham investigation and carefully selected former players to retaliate against Coach Mike for standing up for his players and against ULL's discrimination. Also, omitted from ULL's public records dump are the letters from scores of former players of Coach Mike who overwhelming love and support him and defend their experiences here as positive and learning and in most cases life changing which help build them into strong, confident, competitive women. Also omitted were scores of letters from sofball fans to ULL's administration & the HR department at ULL in support of Coach Mike and refuting the allegations that supposedly happened at games they were at.

We have reached out to ULL to request to keep this professional and amicable but ULL continues to be vitriolic and slanderous instead of acknowledging Coach Mike's 17 years of contributions to this school and our community or noting his courage to continue to fight his battle with cancer. So in order to get due process to redress ULL's dishonesty and ungratefulness, we look forward to a fair and proper legal proceeding where we can call the complainants against Coach Mike under cross examination to find out why they waited over four months but more importantly to bring the current & former players who were not respected enough by ULL to weigh in on these false allegations nor have their voices heard and were denied their "say" in this matter by ULL on how much Coach Mike and ULL softball and their sisterhood influenced their lives in a positive, fulfilling way.

Lastly, retaliation is further evident by ULL in it's termination of Coach Chris Malveaux & his wife, Kate (who have a newborn baby) and Coach Sara & Kelsey: former ULL players who were on staff & ULL's stubbornness in refusal to consider the welfare of the current players who want to be released to play at other programs. If ULL's finding that its softball environment was so hostile that Coach Mike and the entire staff had to be fired, and if there are current players who agree and even participated in the same methods of holding each other accountable and showed up everyday to be as intense and as competitive as the staff -- then ULL should "fire" / release them too so they can go chase their dreams and be in the competitive environment of their choice instead of some administrator or HR person with no athletic playing experience dictating to them that they have to stay at ULL.

Finally, on behalf of Coach Mike & his family, and the staff, thank you our softball sisterhood for all of your love & support & prayers for a lot of years through a lot of trials but also through a lot of joy too; the softball journey is so fulfilling and extremely rewarding. Let us all keep striving for more equity and more respect for our game and our players and our daughters. 

Happy Thanksgiving!