*The names of the students interviewed are pseudonyms to protect their confidentiality.
A former Woodside High School student has accused the school’s volleyball coach, Thomas Feng, of sexual assault. Feng, who is 26 years old, worked as a coach at Woodside for several years, during which the student alleges he groomed and sexually assaulted her, starting when she was 15 years old. Feng was charged with sexual assault earlier this year, and the student has since filed a lawsuit against the District, claiming they knew of the abuse and failed to intervene.
In addition to his position within the District, Feng worked as a girls volleyball coach for Academy Volleyball Club, beginning as early as 2019. Many female volleyball players at M-A have had Feng as a club coach for years and shared mixed reactions to the allegations against him.
Grace*
Sophomore Grace, who currently plays volleyball at M-A, first picked up the sport in seventh grade at Hillview Middle School and decided to try club volleyball in her eighth-grade year. That year—2023—she joined Academy Volleyball Club based in Redwood City. Feng was her first-ever club coach.
“He honestly was helpful. He let me play with his older team so I could go to their practices, or sometimes he and the assistant coach would say, ‘Oh, you guys can come in early to the gym and practice,’” Grace explained. “He was pretty professional with us.”
However, as the season progressed, Grace began hearing rumors about Feng and the female player, who was also an assistant coach for Grace’s team.
“I would see them together whenever I would go to the older practice. I would see him and her together, but I didn’t really think much of it, just because she’s a player who’s been playing with him for a really long time, but he seemed a little too excited to be around her,” she said.
Though Grace didn’t think much of the rumors, she confided in her sister’s friend—a Woodside student—who was also familiar with the allegations. “We were just kids. We didn’t know if it was true,” she said. “I don’t think anyone did anything just because we didn’t think it was real. We heard about it, and were like, ‘Nah, there’s no way.’”
Similarly, the lawsuit filed against the District claims that many students saw the two kissing in the school parking lot, in each other’s cars, going out to lunch together, and walking out of a Woodside storage closet together.
Grace and her teammates observed similar behavior between the two. “He would come late or something, and she would come out, like, five minutes after him. And, at first, you wouldn’t think anything, or that it’s weird. But then, the more you think about it, it’s like they were driving together,” Grace said.
Nearly a year later, in 2025, Feng left Academy, and in March 2026, an Almanac article about the lawsuit alerted Grace and others to the severity of the allegations.
“I read the article, and I wasn’t surprised that he got caught, just because I’ve been hearing about it. But I was surprised it had been going on since she was 15, since I thought it stopped after a year. I thought she was 17, but she was 15, and that’s crazy to me. That’s super young,” Grace said.
Reflecting on the allegations, Grace wishes Academy and Woodside had taken the rumors seriously. “I was just angry for the fact that he would just do something like that. I think it’s really inappropriate and it’s not okay at all,” Grace said. “I wish they would have disciplined him and fired him, and taken legal action much earlier. It’s unfortunate that it took three years for it to happen.”
Nadia*
Sophomore Nadia began playing volleyball in elementary school and, like Grace, decided to try club volleyball in middle school. In her seventh-grade year, she joined Academy and also had Feng as her first-ever club coach.
“Thomas was my first actual coach. I had never really experienced anything else, so I didn’t really have anything to compare it to,” Nadia explained.
Though Nadia didn’t personally have a poor relationship with Feng, she noted that many of her teammates disliked his coaching style. “He was a little bit strict as a coach. There were some tournaments where he would yell at people for things that not necessarily they would need to be yelled at for,” she said.
Toward the end of her season, around the spring of 2024, Nadia began hearing rumors about the relationship between Feng and the female player. Still, like Grace, Nadia explained she thought the relationship was merely a twisted rumor and disregarded them. “We didn’t really know that it was necessarily illegal or something necessarily really bad. We didn’t really take it seriously because it was more just a rumor or, like a joke that went around,” she added.
Nadia finished up her season at Academy in 2024 and gave little thought to the rumors. That was until 2026, when she read the Almanac article about the female player’s lawsuit.
Upon learning about the extent of the grooming and assault, Nadia was disappointed but unsurprised. “In all the articles that came out, they say that people noticed things that they were doing together, like being together in cars and coming out of closets. I wish that people had actually taken that seriously, and not just been like, ‘Oh, they’re kids,’” she said.
Despite Feng’s behavior, Nadia still has faith in coaches and club volleyball as a whole. “Now I definitely realize that this is something that could happen, but it doesn’t affect the way I see my coaches or interact with them,” Nadia said.
Gemma
Before joining Academy in eighth grade, sophomore Gemma had played volleyball since elementary school. Gemma enjoyed her first season with Academy and valued how experienced the club’s coaching staff was, so she decided to return for her freshman season. That year, Feng was her head coach.
Unlike Grace and Nadia, Gemma was already aware of the rumors regarding Feng and the female player before he became her coach. “Going into that team, I had that in mind, but I just assumed it was a rumor. And when I met him formally, I didn’t really suspect anything because, why would you?” she said. “It was discussed, but it was never taken very seriously. It was more almost a joke. Nobody truly believed it, especially after meeting him, you wouldn’t really suspect that.”
Similar to Nadia, Gemma also recalled Feng’s strict coaching style and noted that it led multiple girls on her team to quit midseason. “He was pretty strict and harsh with people, which did affect some other girls on the team, and they just didn’t enjoy it. So a few girls did quit my team after having Thomas as a coach,” Gemma explained.
Despite these challenges, the team remained intact and concluded their season in June 2025. Nearly a month later, Feng left Academy.
Still, it wasn’t until the female player filed a lawsuit against the District in March 2026 that Gemma realized the validity of the rumors. “I was truly shocked,” Gemma said. “I had known that they were together, but I didn’t know to what extent.”
Additionally, Gemma was disturbed to learn of both Academy’s and the District’s lack of intervention despite warnings from parents. “Parents pushed that out and brought it up to the director and everything, and they didn’t do much about that. I definitely think that they should have done a lot more than what they did, because they did not do much,” she said.
While this experience hasn’t deterred Gemma’s love for volleyball, it has changed the way she approaches coach-player relationships—especially with male coaches. “[I will] definitely be more aware of who’s my coach and I’ll pay more attention. If there were to be rumors, I’ll probably take them more seriously, especially with male coaches, because [Feng] was the first male coach that I had.”
Gaby Foster formerly played at Academy Volleyball Club during Feng’s time of employment.
