The Iowa softball team circled around Iowa’s acting head — and only remaining — coach during their home opener on March 12. Donning the Black and Gold, Karl Gollan rallied his team before taking on the University of St. Thomas at Bob Pearl Field.

The crack of the bat striking the ball. The stark shadows cast from the overhead sun. The cheers and words of encouragement coming from the dugout. 

All underpinned by months of tension culminating in the removal of the team’s former head coach.

Five days ago, the University of Iowa let go of Iowa softball interim head coach Brian Levin.

Levin’s dismissal on March 7 came one week after strain within the program boiled over at a team meeting on March 1 during a series in Fayetteville, Arkansas. While Levin had underlying concerns with the team’s culture, it all came to a head as players disagreed over the decision to kneel for the national anthem before games.

Before Iowa’s home-opener on Wednesday, four players — Jaylee Ojo, Sofia Elliott, Soo-Jin Berry, and Mya Clark — kneeled during the national anthem.

RELATED: Iowa Interim Head Coach Brian Levin departs from softball program

Despite the coaching fluctuations, the Hawkeyes were able to clinch two victories, 3-1 and 1-0, during their two matchups against St. Thomas. 

Tatianna Roman, a fourth-year player from Garden Grove, California, said the team has bonded through this period of turbulence.

“At the end of the day, we all know that we have ourselves,” Roman said after the games. “We’re staying positive, and we’re having each other’s backs, so that’s all that matters right now. Despite whatever happened, we’re in really positive and high vibes.

“It’s difficult for anyone to face a situation like that, but we’re trying to stay positive and, like I said, have each other’s backs. It’s all we can do,” she continued. “The past is the past, and we just focus on the present and how we can get better in the future.”

However, when asked about the assertion that the softball team’s culture is harmful to players, Roman disagreed.

“We’re all really positive and loving girls that have each other’s back,” she said. “People can have their opinion on what they want, but we know in our hearts who we are.”

Berry, a second-year player and key contributor to the team, echoed Roman’s sentiments.

“I don’t have any comment about the person who made those types of comments, but our culture is great,” she said. “We all love each other with our whole hearts.”

In an audio file Levin sent to The DI, the former coach said he has observed culture problems since he first joined the team. According to an email sent from Levin to Suzanne Hilleman, who works in Iowa’s human resources department, Levin — then as assistant coach and after head coach Renee Gillispie stepped away for the 2025 season due to a “personal health matter” — requested a department transfer back in May 2024.

“I would like to discuss a possible future on the administrative side of the athletic department,” the email from Levin reads.

Instead, the department offered him the interim head coach role.

“I felt if we continued down the same road as a program that things would continue to deteriorate,” Levin said. “When I was first offered to be elevated to the position of interim head coach, I mentioned to the administration that it’d be really hard. ‘There’s a lot of cleanup to do here’ [are] the words I used.

“I think the reason that I was a little reluctant was I was aware that there would be some issues among the team that would lead to further problems, and if not properly addressed and resolved, probably would lead to my contract not being renewed because they needed to be fixed and someone needed to do it,” Levin added. “But needless to say, I accepted the role anyway.”

Levin said the cultural issues stem from certain players speaking up for their opinions and others feeling they’re silenced for having differing viewpoints. 

He cited disagreements during the 2024 presidential election, “little quarrels” including one player having to “babysit” her roommate, and players kneeling for the national anthem.

“Players are scared; they’re scared to confront those issues because of fear of being ridiculed or are looked down on because of their views,” Levin said. “It’s really very unhealthy and not a very good way to do business.”

When two players began kneeling for the anthem weeks before that March 1 meeting, Levin said he had no issue with it and told his players it was their right to do it despite not liking it himself. While Levin said then-assistant coach Gollan and softball operations assistant Sammy Diaz told him the kneeling bothered them, he didn’t know if it bothered the players.

But as a 16-year Green Beret, Levin had a collage of photographs of 10 friends killed in action hung up in his office that he chose to hang in the locker room.

“I thought, ‘Man, this is a good time to maybe find that and hang it up in the locker room,’ just give people a different perspective,” Levin said. “[I thought it would] possibly maybe start some type of dialogue where we can talk about things and things like that and remember the sacrifices that people like that have made — put a human face on the perspective.”

While Levin said a handful of players told him they appreciated the decision, four players kneeled before their next game the weekend of the March 1 meeting. 

He said this visibly bothered him during the game and that players approached him in agreement, including after the game when Levin “received word from one of the assistant coaches that there was one of the players that had kneeled that was soliciting and pressuring other teammates” to join.

“I found that divisive,” he said. “I didn’t really like that. So once I realized there were at least eight players at a minimum, and members of the staff, affected by this, I felt a meeting to address it and get it out in the open was necessary.”

Levin said he called the team to the hotel conference room for a meeting, during which the kneeling players gave their viewpoints. Then he gave his viewpoint.

“And I told them that, to me, when we stand for the national anthem, it’s an opportunity to come together in unity to not only honor the sacrifices of soldiers but also civil rights activists,” Levin said. “When you kneel, it brings a person’s personal agenda to the team that takes the focus away from what’s really important to the team — the team goal of winning a championship. So I don’t believe that that really has any place in sport. We’re softball players — not activists.”

But Levin said a player who had previously talked with him about not liking the kneeling spoke up and said she didn’t see any division “in a way that appeared to be an attempt to keep the peace.” 

“I absolutely knew in that moment, as everyone I had spoken with earlier in the day stood silent, that these young women were afraid to speak for fear of ridicule and humiliation about their opinions,” Levin said. “They had been pressured into silence. And that’s not an environment I condone or promote, let alone be blamed later for creating, and not one I want to be a part of.”

So Levin grabbed his bag, declared the prior game the last one he’d coach at Iowa, and left.

“And in retrospect, I wish I probably wouldn’t have said those words or taken that action because I realize how it hurts some of those players,” Levin said. “And I understand their feelings of betrayal and abandonment, all of which are valid. But I also realized that by not doing so, the core problem that exists would never come to the forefront.”

With that core problem now indeed at the forefront, Gollan said after Wednesday’s double-header that his players are getting along well and cheering one another on. 

Gollan said he has not approached the dismissal of Levin with the team.

“I’ve approached the game as I would any other game,” he said. “I don’t try to over-complicate things or bring in external things that make it more complicated than it needs to be. I keep it simple for me and the girls, and we just concentrate on the task at hand.”

And he hasn’t had any conversations with the team about kneeling either.

“We have conversations about softball,” Gollan said. “My job on my knowledge base is understanding how to try to help the girls win ball games. We give the freedom for everybody to be themselves here, and we focus on softball. Those are the things that connect us and make us common.”