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EXCLUSIVE: A female Yale track athlete said she recently left the team due to a “toxic culture and an incompetent coaching staff,” as dissent seeped into the university’s athletics department over the past week.
The athlete, who asked to remain anonymous, sent an unsolicited email with these claims to Pak Gazette Digital from an official Yale student email account, and Pak Gazette Digital verified that she had previously competed on the university’s women’s track team.
“I recently resigned due to a toxic culture and incompetent coaching staff that was recently hired by Vicky Chun during a forced change in team leadership,” part of the email read.
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A Yale Bulldogs flag flies in the wind during the Ivy League Tournament college lacrosse championship between the Pennsylvania Quakers and the Yale Bulldogs on May 8, 2022, at Stevenson-Pincince Field in Providence, RI. (Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The athlete later gave Pak Gazette Digital permission to publish the email.
She is the latest figure connected to Yale Athletics to come forward with alleged details of a negative experience under the leadership of athletic director Victoria Chun.
A letter signed by former Yale hockey coach Keith Allain to Yale President Maurine McInnis alleged that current Yale athletic director Victoria Chun had created a “toxic environment” for university sports teams.
Pak Gazette Digital published the letter last Monday after confirming with Allain that it sent the letter to McInnis via email in October, shortly after his retirement.
“My name is Keith Allain, I have just retired after 19 years as a men’s hockey coach, and I am writing to you at the urging of several head coaches in our Athletics Department. I was told that you were seeking feedback from some coaches regarding the extension of our athletic director’s contract, and they are concerned that with the culture of fear that permeates the athletics department, they will not receive honest feedback,” the letter began.
The letter later said: “Vicky’s singular talent is self-promotion and she has created a toxic environment within the department where she is isolated by a group of administrators whose primary task appears to be to silence any dissent,” the letter continued.
MOM OF FORMER YALE SWIMMERS ALLEGES THE ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT ‘TERRIFIED’ ‘EMASCULATED’ WOMEN AND MEN: ‘LIKE NORTH KOREA’
Last Tuesday, Pak Gazette Digital reported on emails showing A former Yale University administrator told the attorney for former Yale strength and conditioning coach Thomas Newman that he was recorded during a meeting.
“A former employee recorded a portion of a meeting with his client, without the university’s knowledge,” reads part of an email sent to Newman’s attorney, Alan Granovsky. from Yale Deputy general counsel, who no longer works at the university.
The attorney’s email was sent in response to an Aug. 13, 2025, letter with the subject line “Ongoing reputational damage and misstatements about Thomas Newman.”
The attorney’s email also included the lines: “The university has not made any defamatory statements to anyone regarding your client” and “The university did not inappropriately disclose any medical information, the university has not said that your client involuntarily left the university or is the subject of an investigation.”
Newman’s attorneys at Granovsky & Sundaresh Labor Law sent several emails to Yale regarding the issue and Newman’s eventual departure from the university in 2021, which were provided by a source to Pak Gazette Digital. Newman confirmed to Pak Gazette Digital that the emails were exchanged between his attorney and the university administrator.
Meanwhile, Kim Jones, mother of three former Yale swimmers – two women and one man – and founder of the Independent Council for Women’s Sports (ICONS), alleged that the athletics department “terrorized” female swimmers and “castrated” male swimmers, as both groups were forced to compete with trans athletes of the opposite sex under Chun’s leadership.
Chun, a former volleyball player and then head coach at Colgate University, took over as Yale’s athletic director in 2018 after serving in the same position at Colgate from 2012 to 2018.
In an early March interview with the Yale Alumni Association, Chun admitted to making a mistake that brought her to tears in her first year as Yale AD.
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More than 54,000 fans fill the Yale Bowl for the second half of the 141st play of “The Game” between the Yale Bulldogs and the Harvard Crimson on November 22, 2025, in New Haven, Connecticut. (Sean D. Elliot/Getty Images)
“I was talking to football alumni, you know, there’s this great helmet I had at my previous institution. And I thought if Colgate can afford it, we can definitely afford it. So I announced that we were getting these cooler, custom-made Riddell helmets. Then my deputy came up to me and said, ‘What are you thinking? Do you know how much these helmets cost?’ And I said, ‘Yes, we had them at Colgate.’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, like six or seven,'” Chun said in the interview.
“And I cried. Because I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be the shortest-lived athletic director,’ and, you know, here I am!”
Pak Gazette Digital reached out to Yale for comment but did not receive a response.
