Former Yale coaches speak out against athletic director to student newspaper

Disgruntlement continues to leak out of the Yale athletic department.Yale University’s student newspaper, The Yale Daily News, reported that eight former university coaches and athletic staff members “backed” the complaints shared in a letter from former Yale hockey coach Keith Allain to President Maurie McInnis.The letter, which was first reported by Fox News Digital on March 23, alleged Yale athletic director Vicky Chun fostered a “toxic environment.”CLICK HERE FOR MORE SPORTS COVERAGE ON FOXNEWS.COM”Vicky Chun is the absolute worst leader I have ever been around in my life. She is dishonest, self centered and inaccessible. Vicky’s singular talent is self promotion and has created a toxic environment within the department where she is insulated by a cadre of administrators whose main task seems to be silencing any dissent,” Allain’s letter read.The Yale Daily News reported that eight of 12 anonymous former coaches and staffers interviewed agreed with Allain that Chun has created a “culture of fear.”McInnis told the student newspaper that “many people” have sent letters about Chun as the university considers whether to renew her contract.The status of Chun’s contract renewal has become a topic of uncertainty after a Fox News Digital investigative series into Yale’s athletic department under her leadership. Yale has not responded to Fox News Digital’s inquiry on the status of Chun’s contract renewal.Fox News Digital’s investigative series also found that, under Chun’s leadership, former Yale strength and conditioning coach Thomas Newman’s lawyers alleged that he was unknowingly recorded and was “ultimately forced out”; a woman’s track and field athlete left her program due to an alleged “toxic culture”; and two of Yale’s top athletic officials bought a house together a year before one of them was hired by the university, while a former employee was allegedly pushed to retire to open a job for one of those officials.Ann-Marie Guglieri, Yale’s executive deputy director/chief operating officer of athletics, and Mary Berdo, deputy director of athletics, the second- and third-ranked positions in the department under Chun, purchased a house together in Milford, Connecticut, in June 2018, the deed shows. Berdo was then hired by the university in April 2019.FORMER WYOMING VOLLEYBALL STAR REVEALS HOW THE SJSU TRANS SCANDAL PERMANENTLY RUINED FRIENDSHIPS ON HER TEAMTwo former employees of the Yale athletics department have alleged that Guglieri and Berdo are in a romantic relationship. Additional former employees have alleged a former administrator was pressured to accept a voluntary retirement package, which then created an opening for Berdo.Two former employees said the athletics department could not increase its headcount to hire Berdo at the same time it hired Guglieri. But Fox News Digital learned that a former athletics department administrator reluctantly accepted a voluntary retirement package, and then Berdo was hired shortly thereafter. The fo