Yale athletics under scrutiny over hiring

EXCLUSIVE: Two of Yale’s top athletic officials bought a house together a year before one of them was hired by the university, a deed obtained by Fox News Digital shows. Former colleagues have alleged the two officials are in a romantic relationship, and alleged that a former administrator was pushed to retire to vacate a position for one of the partners.

Yale’s Executive Deputy Director/Chief Operating Officer of Athletics Ann-Marie Guglieri and Deputy Director of Athletics Mary Berdo, who are the second and third top-ranked positions at the athletic department under Athletic Director Victoria Chun, purchased a house together in Milford, Connecticut, in June 2018, the deed shows. Berdo was then hired by the university in April of 2019.

Chun, Guglieri and Berdo previously worked together at Colgate University’s athletic department. Yale’s then-president appointed Chun as athletics director in February 2018, and she joined Yale in July 2018. Guglieri started that same month.

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Over 54,000 fill the Yale Bowl for the second half of the 141st plays of “The Game” between the Yale Bulldogs and the Harvard Crimson on November 22, 2025 in New Haven, Connecticut. (Sean D. Elliot/Getty Images)

Two 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.

Guglieri and Berdo’s relationship does not appear to violate Yale’s workplace policies, which state: “Staff are expected to avoid romantic or sexual relationships with employees and trainees for whom they have or might reasonably expect to have supervisory or reporting responsibilities.”

A Yale athletics organization chart obtained by Fox News Digital, created some time after 2019, shows that Berdo and Guglieri do not have a reporting or supervisory relationship with each other. Instead, both report directly to Chun.

Although the relationship does not violate Yale policy, one former Yale coach opined that it is “totally unprofessional” that two people with leadership roles in the Athletics Department “are in a relationship with each other.”

The former coach told Fox News Digital, on the condition of anonymity, that it was “well-known” in the department that Guglieri and Berdo were “a couple,” even though “they didn’t make it obvious.” He said they “came as a packaged deal.”

A former Yale athletic administrator told Fox News Digital under the condition of anonymity that the relationship was “widely known” in the athletic department.

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 former senior associate athletic director was allegedly given “no choice” but to accept the voluntary retirement package in the fall of 2018, creating a vacancy in the department’s front office prior to Berdo’s hiring, according to a former Yale Athletics employee with firsthand knowledge of the situation.

“A senior associate athletic director was called in in October of 2018 and was pressured to accept a retirement package, and this person had no choice but to take this retirement package and give 90-day notice, and just after the 90-day notice, Mary Berdo was hired,” the former employee said.

Former Yale men’s hockey head coach Keith Allain told Fox News Digital that the former employee’s recollection of the pressured retirement and eventual hiring of Berdo is consistent with what he had been told by individuals within the athletics department. Allain declined further comment.

Yale fans watching their sides loss during the Harvard Vs Yale, College Football, Ivy League deciding game, Harvard Stadium, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 22nd November 2014. Photo Tim Clayton (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)

Sources with whom Fox News Digital spoke did not claim that Guglieri participated in the selection process for Berdo. But one said there was “a huge question mark surrounding the convenient hiring of Mary Berdo, also from Colgate,” and whether the process was completely objective.

While Yale declined to comment “on individual personnel matters,” a spokesman for the university president’s office told Fox News Digital: “We can confirm that Yale has a robust set of personnel and disclosure policies that it followed.”

Before she joined Yale, Berdo was the senior associate athletic director at Colgate University and a member of the department’s executive senior staff. She previously worked at the NCAA national headquarters and as assistant director of events and championships at the University of Michigan. She played basketball for the University of Iowa.

“Vicky was only able to bring one director, Ann-Marie, with her at the start of her Yale tenure,” another former Yale Athletics employee told Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity.

The employee said he had left Yale by the time Berdo was hired but questioned whether the process may have involved “preferential treatment,” as “Mary’s hire seemed to be predetermined a year in advance.”

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Fox News Digital has reached out Guglieri and Berdo via their university email addresses, and to an email address believed to belong to Chun, but has not received a response.

Fox News Digital has verified the identity of the former employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity and that they worked at Yale in the provided timeframes. Other sources contacted by Fox News Digital did not dispute or contradict any of the above allegations.

Former Yale coaches have had issues with current leadership

Head coach Keith Allain of USA during practice before the 2011 IIHF World U20 Championship Group A game between USA and Finland on December 26, 2010 at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, New York. (Tom Szczerbowski/Getty Images)

A letter signed by Allain addressed to Yale President Maurie McInnis alleged that Chun has created a “toxic environment“ for the university’s sports teams.

Fox News Digital published the letter last Monday after confirming with Allain that he sent the letter to McInnis via email in October, shortly after his retirement.

“I am writing to you at the urging of several head coaches in our Athletic Department. They told me that you were soliciting feedback from a few coaches regarding extending the contract of our athletic director, and are concerned, that with the culture of fear that permeates the athletic department, you will not receive candid feedback,” the letter began.

The letter later wrote, “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,” the letter continued.

Newman’s lawyer did not allege that either Chun or Guglieri were responsible for making the recording.

The letter — sent approximately four years after Newsman’s departure from the university in 2021 — requested a “settlement dialogue, including both financial and non-financial terms.” Newman has not taken legal action against Yale or any representatives of Yale, and Fox News Digital does not know whether the parties have settled their dispute.

As part of the letter exchange, a former deputy general counsel for Yale confirmed to Granovsky: “A former employee recorded a portion of a meeting with your client, without the university’s knowledge.” The attorney for Yale denied various other allegations made by Granovsky.

A subsequent letter indicates that Yale later provided a copy of an audio file to Granovsky on October 28, 2025. Granovsky responded on November 17 with questions about the recording and noted that Yale’s policy prohibits “surreptitious” recordings.

The current version of Yale’s recording policy, which took effect in 2024, states: “Except as authorized by University personnel, participants in meetings in the course of employment or curricular or extracurricular activities may not record such meetings without the permission of all participants.”

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Fox News Digital cannot confirm if any additional letters were exchanged between Newman’s attorneys and representatives of Yale.

A source provided copies of the letter and email exchange between Granovsky and Yale to Fox News Digital, and Newman confirmed their authenticity.

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