Eight former Yale coaches and athletic staff members have backed complaints against athletic director Vicky Chun, adding new pressure as the university weighs whether to renew her contract. The support was detailed in a Yale Daily News report on a letter from former Yale hockey coach Keith Allain to President Maurine McInnis, which alleged that Chun fostered a toxic environment.
Allain’s letter, first reported by Digital on March 23, was blunt in its attack on Chun, calling her dishonest, self-centered and inaccessible and accusing her of creating a department where dissent is silenced. Yale Daily News reported that eight of 12 anonymous former coaches and staffers interviewed agreed with Allain that Chun created a culture of fear, a sign that the dispute has widened beyond one former coach’s complaint.
McInnis told the student newspaper that many people have sent letters about Chun as Yale considers whether to renew her contract. Yale has not responded to Digital’s inquiry about the status of that renewal, leaving the university publicly silent even as the criticism intensifies.
The controversy sits inside a broader set of allegations about Yale athletics under Chun’s leadership. Digital reported that lawyers for former Yale strength and conditioning coach Thomas Newman alleged he was unknowingly recorded and later forced out, while a women’s track and field athlete left her program over what was described as a toxic culture. The reporting also said two of Yale’s top athletic officials, Ann-Marie Guglieri and Mary Berdo, bought a house together in Milford, Connecticut, in June 2018, a year before Berdo was hired by Yale in April 2019, and that two former athletics employees have alleged the pair are involved in the dispute.
For Yale, the immediate question is not whether the criticism exists. It does. The question is whether the school will keep Chun in place while so many former insiders are now saying the problems run deeper than one letter.