Virginia Tech softball outfielder Bre Warren filed an injunction against the NCAA on Monday, seeking immediate eligibility to play for the remainder of the season, according to a copy obtained by Tech Sideline. Damien Sordelett of The Roanoke Times first reported the news on Monday.
“I transferred to Virginia Tech to play softball for the Hokies,” Warren said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, the NCAA disregarded its own rules and prohibited me from playing despite circumstances outside my control preventing me from playing softball last year. I filed this lawsuit because it was my only option to enforce my rights and let me finish my collegiate career playing the sport I love.”
“We are asking the Court for emergency relief to allow Bre Warren to play softball for Virginia Tech this season, her last opportunity to do, and we look forward to moving this case forward,” Warren’s attorneys — John P. Fishwick Jr., Carrol M. Ching and Daniel J. Martin — said in a press statement.
Warren transferred to Virginia Tech ahead of the 2026 campaign after not playing in 2025. She spent 2024 at South Carolina and 2021-23 at Texas A&M. As a sophomore in 2022, she sustained a rotator cuff injury at the start of the season and redshirted. She was cleared to play under a new coach in 2023 while still in physical therapy from the injury as a redshirt sophomore.
Warren has not played with Virginia Tech this season. She has been with the team but not in uniform during games.
“Unfortunately, that season Bre faced verbal mistreatment in the form of personal attacks and psychological strain, which served to exacerbate her existing mental health issues,” the injunction said. “… Her concerns and feelings were not taken seriously [by those in the program], and Bre was told to ‘suck it up.’”
Her initial plan was to complete her undergraduate degree at the end of the 2023-24 academic year, then start graduate school in the fall of 2024. However, she was released from Texas A&M after the 2023 season and transferred to South Carolina that summer, which complicated those plans.
She played at South Carolina during the 2024 season as a redshirt junior with the intention of graduating that summer. However, her athletic academic advisor recommended a class for which Warren had received credit at Texas A&M. At the end of the summer, per the injunction, the academic advisor realized Warren was three credits short of graduation and would not be able to complete her coursework until December 2024.
During that time, South Carolina hired Ashley Chastain Woodard as its next softball coach. Woodard and her staff released Warren, preventing her from playing for South Carolina during the 2025 season, though she was still on track to graduate in December 2024.
According to the injunction, Hilary Cox, South Carolina’s executive associate athletics director for strategic initiatives, told Warren she could not transfer between the fall and spring semester — following her graduation — and be immediately eligible to play. However, NCAA Bylaw 14.6.1.2 says students who graduate can transfer to another institution and receive immediate eligibility.
“Thus, it is clear from this Bylaw that Plaintiff could have transferred between the fall and spring semesters of the 2024-2025 school year and immediately played in the spring 2025 season at the transfer institution,” the injunction said. “However, based on the written, clearly erroneous guidance provided by USC and its compliance staff, Bre reasonably believed she did not have that option.”
Additionally, the motion said Warren faced “severe harassment, ridicule, bullying and discrimination by South Carolina’s coaching staff, including on the basis of race” during the 2024 season — under previous head coach Beverly Smith. It said neither Smith nor any assistants intervened.
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“One particularly troubling and illustrative incident occurred when a member of the coaching staff instructed Bre to ‘act like a monkey.’ Such a racially charged statement was immediately offensive to Bre, who is Black, and to all the other players, particularly the four Black players on the team,” the injunction said. “After this statement, the same member of the coaching staff also sent a group chat message with a picture of a monkey toy for her dogs and commented about the dog destroying the monkey toy. Other racially derogatory and insensitive comments were also made to Bre, including comments toward Black players being ‘segregated.’ Coaching staff also made comments directed at the Black players on the team, including Bre, such as asking whether their friends were dead or locked up, but not making similar comments about white players.”
Virginia Tech recruited Warren to play and enroll in graduate school ahead of the 2025-26 season. Tech submitted an Extension of Eligibility Waiver to the NCAA on Oct. 30, 2025, saying Warren was not given participation opportunities during two seasons — once when she redshirted in 2022 and once in 2025. The NCAA denied the extension request.
Virginia Tech appealed and the NCAA denied it on Feb. 25, 2026, more than three weeks into the season and after the program had already played 13 games.
“Although the committee agreed that her redshirt year was a denial of participation opportunity, it found that the 2024-25 academic year [when she was released from the roster and advised not to transfer] was a participation opportunity and that Bre was unable to present extraordinary circumstances to warrant granting the waiver,” the injunction said.
The lawsuit said Warren will complete her graduate coursework in May, meaning this year is her final opportunity to participate in collegiate softball. She is not seeking to play next year; rather, she is trying to play the remainder of the season with No. 12 Virginia Tech (34-5).
“Bre is a great teammate,” Hokies senior Kylie Aldridge said after the team’s win at Radford on Tuesday. “She’s one of the best people I’ve probably ever met playing softball. So, I’m excited that she’s at Virginia Tech.”
The College Station, Texas, native was an All-SEC First Team selection in 2021 when she hit .308 with 11 doubles, three home runs, 28 RBI and 22 walks as a freshman, scoring 24 runs. Coming off her injury in 2023, Warren batted .182, and she was .175 at the plate with 11 RBI in her lone season playing for the Gamecocks.
“Bre Warren is an awesome kid,” Virginia Tech head coach Pete D’Amour said. “She’s awesome. I’m glad she’s around. I wish we had her for four years. Her family is doing what they need to do to see if she can play or not.”
Warren filed a notice of hearing in Montgomery County’s circuit court for Monday, April 13.
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