Viewpoint: Faherty allegations, admissions scandal leave Yale in a place it doesn’t want to be,

NEW HAVEN — After Yale announced the immediate departure of women’s soccer coach Brendan Faherty amid sexual misconduct allegations documented by the student newspaper, Vicky Chun directed a comforting statement toward her players.

“I am meeting with them to offer resources during this difficult time and I look forward to charting a new path forward together,” Yale’s athletic director said Thursday. “We know change is hard, but also know the strength and resiliency of our women’s soccer team will shine through this difficult time.”

The women better be strong and resilient. For those around them, trusted mentors and supposed leaders, have been weak.

There are seven state women on the Yale soccer team:

Emily Clorite, sophomore from Madison and Choate Rosemary.

Giovanna Dionicio, freshman from West Hartford Hall.

Alexandra McCraven, junior from Cheshire and Hopkins.

Christine Oberhausen, junior from Avon High.

Lydia Shaw, junior from Westport Staples.

Kristi Wharton, senior from North Branford and Choate Rosemary.

Emily Yin, sophomore from Westport and Hopkins.

No, the state seven are not more important than those from outside Connecticut, yet we need to put names and familiar places to studentathletes who deserve better than an unfortunate string of circumstances that have led to a 12 gut punch to the school and program. One of the most prestigious aca

demic institutions on earth has done less than a highbrow job on lessons of greed, bribery, improper relationships and alleged sexual misconduct. Over the past year, beyond its own studies, this team has been forcefed a course in #VarsityBlues#MeTwo 101. And that’s not right.

When Rudy Meredith resigned Nov. 15, 2018, after 24 years as women’s coach to pursue other opportunities, Chun thanked him for his dedicated service and leadership.

“I have admired Rudy’s successes and I am grateful for all he has contributed,” Chun said.

When Chun named Faherty in December with her first coaching hire, she talked how the respect and love of his former studentathletes helped make him a clear choice.

“Brendan’s core values align perfectly with those of our university and department,” Chun said.

Less than a year later, Chun’s words appear naïve and fantastic. Certainly unfortunate.

Meredith already was in Goodfellas deep with the feds on Nov. 15, 2018. Yale got a sniff a day later when it received a federal grand jury subpoena requesting information on Meredith and demanding it not make it public. By March, there was Meredith pleading guilty to soliciting nearly $1 million in bribes from wealthy parents to gain admission to Yale. It was all part of the Varsity Blues scandal, the largest of its kind in prosecutorial history and one that caught Hollywood stars Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman in its net. The thought of Meredith taking hundreds of thousands to concoct two false athletic profiles is sickening. Yes, one, despite his recommendation, was rejected. Yes, the one who was accepted later had her admission rescinded. And, true, no one else at Yale was involved.

Yet how do you forget Meredith’s greed and the unalloyed arrogance of the more than 50 people involved nationally? How do you forget the piercing anger you feel for the less privileged and more honest among us who can’t quite get into the best colleges? You don’t forget.

You can only applaud Yale for taking steps to not let it happen again, push the school to remain vigilant and, oh yeah, hope we get a photo of Aunt Becky in an orange prison jumpsuit.

After Meredith, Chun needed to make a spotless women’s soccer hire. The background checks, the resume, the references, the interviews … Yale can survive anything, but it certainly didn’t need another women’s soccer scandal. Yale got one.

We know Faherty, 1141 in his only season, is gone. We don’t know if he was fired or resigned.

We know Faherty has not been criminally charged. We do not know if Faherty will file a civil suit. He may try to get money. He’s not getting his job back.

His attorney, Theodore W. Heiser, said in a statement, “(Faherty) denies having engaged in any nonconsensual relationships. He further denies having any inappropriate sexual interaction or contact of any kind. Based upon the report, he is no longer employed at Yale.”

The first part of Heiser’s statement appears to address the accusation that Faherty, while coaching at the University of New Haven, groped a player’s breasts at his place in January 2009 after returning from a concert in New York.

If the second part of Heiser’s statement was meant to address a multiyear consensual relationship an unnamed woman told the Yale Daily News she had with Faherty at New Haven, UNH told Hearst Connecticut on Friday it adopted a policy prohibiting inappropriate contact between athletic staff and students in 2000. Two years before Faherty arrived.

Ultimately, that would be more damaging to Faherty than Yale’s rule against sexual relationships between staff and coach. No one at Yale has accused him of wrongdoing, yet Yale is the one that had to decide what measures to take when confronted with the student newspaper’s investigation of Faherty. The NCAA does not expressly forbid romantic relationships, yet calls any sexual contact between coach and athlete “abusive.”

Hiring a man in his early to mid20 as coach of college women is risky business for schools that demand no romantic interaction. This is scarcely breaking news. Too little maturity, too much testosterone … If a young guy is to be hired, he has to be carefully vetted. One need to look no further than Pat Summitt’s son Tyler, hired at 23 as head women’s coach at Louisiana Tech. He was considered a basketball wunderkind. Within two years, he had resigned after an extramarital affair with a player who later became his wife.

Faherty was 24 when he became coach at New Haven. Pointing to numerous sources, the Yale Daily News reported he regularly met players at bars. That would not be wise. No matter the age difference, there is the power difference. The coach is the authority figure. He makes the rules. He decides playing minutes. And if he’s — in today’s vernacular — a player, think of all the head games romance can cause in the locker room dynamic.

The woman who alleged she had a relationship with Faherty before and after graduation spoke to the Yale Daily News how it led to rifts on the team, her isolation and subsequent depression. The coach, she told the paper, often asked her to meet secretly for fear he could lose his job and ruin his reputation if word got out. Well, a decade later and two miles away, word got out and now everyone from Vicky Chun to Faherty’s wife , who played at UMass when Faherty was an assistant, are left dealing with the painful fallout.

The other situation has nothing to do with love. After a concert and going to bars in New York, according to the Yale Daily News, three of Faherty’s players agreed to ride back to New Haven with him. It was a terrifying drive, the sources allege, because Faherty was drunk. After dropping off the two other players at their apartment, according to the woman who alleged she was groped, Faherty rejected her request to let her go with the others and allegedly insisted she go to his place. If that part is 100 percent true, man, that’s frightening. She told the paper she asked to sleep on the couch, but Faherty allegedly demanded she join him in his bed and started grabbing her breasts. When he fell asleep, she said she charged her phone and called a taxi.

The woman did not file a formal complaint with UNH.

According to the paper, there is a photo of the three in the backseat of his car that night; a Facebook message four years later that starts with an apology; attempts by Faherty to reach out to both women in recent weeks after the Yale Daily News began making calls. There are several sources corroborating the women’s accounts, although some do not specifically remember talk of groping. None allowed their names to be used publicly.

Look, the composition of this column has relied heavily on the reporting of a student newspaper. “Alleges” are everywhere. That reporting, with so many unnamed sources, must ultimately stand the scrutiny. We also know Debbie Chin hired Faherty at UNH. Longtime coach Lesle Gallimore brought him to Washington. Chun hired him at Yale. Women believed in him. The New York Times contacted Stony Brook and there were no problems there, either.

I am not a judge. I am not a jury. I’m not an athletic director.

I do know the idea of sexual relationships when a man is coaching a college women’s team is a very bad idea, and unwanted advances can be terrifying.

Coupled with a coach accepting nearly a $1 million in bribes, Yale finds itself in a place it does not want to be.