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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Re: ‘Softball Players Detail Years of Mistreatment by Coach, Neglect by Cornell Athletics’

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To the Editor:

I am writing in response to a May 11 letter to the editor in The Sun signed by several alumni and former coaches of Cornell Softball. While I respect their loyalty for supporting a former teammate, coach or colleague, I note the following. First, only four of the 52 players who signed the letter actually played for head coach Julie Farlow ’97 during her tenure as head coach; second, each of those four players was in her senior season when she played for Farlow as head coach (I understand the player in the Class of 2017 who signed the letter was abroad her entire junior year); and third, none of them played for Farlow as head coach for more than one year. Accordingly, the perspective offered by the alumni players is based on their experiences with Farlow as a teammate or an assistant coach under the direction and supervision of the beloved and highly successful Coach Dick Blood and not as a head coach. While Farlow may have been adequate as a teammate or an assistant coach following the guidance of Coach Blood, as a head coach she has been an absolute failure and is single-handedly destroying the culture, goodwill and reputation of a program Coach Blood and each of the alumni players worked so hard over the years to build and maintain.