Ahead of Maryland women’s soccer’s match against Penn State in 2024, players gathered for a team meeting in the locker room. They said they wanted to boycott the game if coach Meghan Ryan Nemzer remained part of the team.
About a day after, Maryland athletics announced it “parted ways” with Nemzer. Since her departure, three former players told The Diamondback anonymously that they were subject to emotional abuse, beratement and manipulation when she was head coach.
“I physically could not think or talk about Maryland soccer or soccer at all,” one former player said. “I hated soccer and I hated what I was doing.”
Nemzer went 10-25-14 in just more than two seasons as Maryland’s coach. Her tenure ended after the Terps went more than 700 days without a Big Ten win. Players said the losing only exacerbated Nemzer’s behavior.
The Diamondback is keeping the three players anonymous out of fear for retribution. The coach, who declined a phone interview, wrote in a statement to The Diamondback that she cannot address specific concerns related to former athletes because of the University of Maryland’s confidentiality policies.
Nemzer arrived in College Park after 13 years coaching at Rutgers. She took over a Maryland program that hadn’t produced a winning season since 2012 and went winless in the Big Ten the year prior.
Nemzer consistently reeled in solid recruiting classes, with her 2023 group ranking No. 11 nationally, according to TopDrawer Soccer. Players looked back on their recruitment processes fondly.
When they arrived on campus, things changed quickly, players said.
The three players told The Diamondback that the team was subject to emotional abuse and manipulation. They said Nemzer would host one-on-one meetings with players, allegedly pushing them to gossip about their teammates. She would ask players to rate their teammates based on their “championship mindset” and likability, a player said, before allegedly telling players which of their peers disliked or did not trust them.
[Coach Meghan Ryan Nemzer to leave Maryland women’s soccer]
The players also said they believed they were being pitted against each other in practices, discouraging relationships and encouraging infighting. One player recalled “intense, negative” incidents of individuals being singled out in front of the entire team.
“You’re not friends, you’re competing,” one former player remembered Nemzer saying.
Nemzer allegedly urged one former player to transfer in a moment that was like “a flip of a switch,” despite the player wanting to stay with the team. The player said Nemzer told them they would “never play” and “never be top.”
“After she went on that rant, I ended up spacing out,” the player said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I guess I want to transfer,’ while I’m bawling my eyes out.”
Throughout her career, she’s been focused on “fostering a positive and empowering environment grounded in respect, openness, and excellence,” Nemzer wrote in her statement.
“I want to be clear that I have always supported the University of Maryland’s medical and nutritional staff and I have always approached my role with integrity and with the best interests of my players at heart,” Nemzer wrote.
Players said their treatment got worse as the losses continued.
“A lot of what she did came out of desperation,” a former player said. “I think that she was in desperation mode, and I think that was the reason for her actions.”
A player said if Nemzer thought a player wasn’t displaying full effort, she would berate them. One player remembered others being “forced to eat” at halftime if they weren’t playing hard enough.
While coaches implementing specific diets is not uncommon, some players said they felt micromanaged by Nemzer’s regimented eating plans. One player who struggled with anxiety remembered vomiting during practices. Nemzer allegedly still mandated that the player meet with a nutritionist, despite her alerting the coach of their diagnosis.
[Maryland women’s soccer improved in 2025, but is still far from a threat in the Big Ten]
“I had to keep a food journal. Honestly, that started to trigger me more,” the player said. “I could have developed an eating disorder, because I literally was so focused on my food all of a sudden, which I never had been before.”
The athletic department hired a mental health counselor to the women’s soccer staff after Nemzer’s first full season. The team still has a counselor listed on its roster.
Damon Evans, Maryland’s former athletic director who hired Nemzer and was director when the department “parted ways” with her, declined to comment on the allegations through a spokesperson. The spokesperson directed The Diamondback to Maryland athletics for a statement. Evans left Maryland in March to become the athletic director at SMU.
The Diamondback asked Maryland athletics about the allegations against Nemzer. The department did not address them, and reiterated its confidence in now-coach Marchiano.
“We have the utmost confidence in Michael Marchiano that he is leading our Maryland women’s soccer program with care, pride, and integrity. We’ve shown significant progress this past season, and I look forward to Michael leading our program to success in the future,” Shawn Flynn, the senior associate athletic director and women’s soccer sport supervisor at Maryland, wrote.
Marchiano, who played for the men’s soccer team from 2005 to 2008, took over as interim coach after Nemzer’s departure and then assumed the full-time head coaching position this year.
One player recalled celebrating outside of a Starbucks with some teammates after Nemzer and Maryland parted ways. On the first anniversary of her departure, players texted to commemorate.
“We all had different beliefs about her, different opinions, different experiences, but at the end of the day, we all still came together and were like, ‘She needs to go,’” one player said. “We were all equally happy when she left, which I think says a lot about the kind of coach and person she was.”
