Three former athletes on the Penn women’s track and field team alleged mistreatment during their time with the program, describing instances of sexual harassment and retaliation after reporting the incidents to the team’s coaching staff.

In interviews with The Daily Pennsylvanian, two Penn seniors and one recent graduate described a training environment in which some female athletes felt “unsafe” and unsupported during their time with the throwing program from 2020-23. The athletes cited a pattern of “inappropriate” remarks and actions from former volunteer assistant coach Vlad Pavlenko. Athletes also claimed that current head coach Steve Dolan told the women’s throwers that if Pavlenko’s alleged misconduct did not involve physical touching, their concerns were “not an issue.”

Wharton senior Kira Lindner later alleged two individual instances in which then-assistant coach Fletcher Brooks — now the throwing coach at Harvard — touched her without her consent in ways that made her feel “incredibly uncomfortable” and which Lindner found “sexually suggestive.”

After a yearlong mental health leave, College senior Omonye Osezua suffered a torn posterior cruciate ligament, which is located inside the knee joint, in October 2023 and alleged that she did not receive an MRI for four months due to erroneous guidance from the team’s training staff. After she healed from her injury, Osezua claimed that Dolan asked her not to rejoin the team, adding that she felt Dolan did not want her to return due to her previous mental health issues.

Each athlete said their experiences were part of a larger team culture that they claim failed to properly address the concerns of its female athletes.

“It was just horrifying,” Lindner said of her experience on the team. “You think that these people — these coaches and the Title IX officers — you think that they’re on your side … Then they continue to make actions that prove over and over again that they’re just trying to make you go away.”

“There’s this guise of ‘Oh, we’re a family, we all care about each other,’” Osezua said of the team’s culture. “And then something happens.”

All four male throwers the DP spoke with were complimentary of Dolan and Brooks. In a statement to the DP, Penn Athletics wrote that the "safety and well-being of our student-athletes is paramount."

"We take student-athlete concerns seriously and when issues arise, we work directly with University resources, including the Title IX Office," a spokesperson wrote. "When Head Coach Steve Dolan was made aware of the allegations, he reported to athletic administration and the complaint was communicated to the Title IX Office. As student and employee records are protected under federal privacy law and institutional policy, we cannot comment on the details of any particular case.”

The DP spoke with 16 sources familiar with Penn track and field and Title IX as part of its investigation into the allegations against the program. Lindner also provided the DP with 35 pages of documents — including text messages, emails, and practice schedules — spanning from September 2021 to August 2023, as well as a copy of her official Title IX complaint, which she lodged against the University in June 2023. 

Pavlenko could not be reached by social media or by the phone of his most recent employer prior to publication. Brooks also could not be reached for comment.

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Brooks was hired as Penn’s throwing coach at the start of Lindner’s freshman year in fall 2021 and brought Pavlenko, who he coached from 2015-21 at Iowa State, with him. At Penn, Pavlenko often worked in one-on-one or small group sessions with the Quakers’ hammer throwers, including Lindner. 

During these sessions, Lindner claimed that Pavlenko frequently made sexually charged remarks about her and other female athletes.

“Throughout the year, he would make super inappropriate comments — sexually inappropriate — he would make a lot of innuendos. It was so awful,” Lindner said. “Specifically to me. He would make these jokes, and then he would look at me in front of everybody and be like, ‘Kira gets it. Kira knows exactly what I’m talking about.’”

According to Lindner, Pavlenko’s comments persisted throughout her freshman season, causing her and her teammates to not feel “safe or comfortable around [Pavlenko].”

“When you’re a freshman, the hardest part is you don’t know what’s normal,” Lindner said. “So you’ll take it for a while, you’ll be like, ‘This must just be what [Division I] athletics is like.’ And then when the gross, weird stuff starts happening, especially as a female athlete, you start to question if this is normal or not.”

Emails reviewed by the DP show that Lindner and three other members of the women’s throwing team met with Dolan on April 1, 2022, to discuss their concerns about Pavlenko and Brooks. In an email that Lindner sent to Dolan on April 3, 2022, as a follow up to the meeting, she claimed that Dolan expressed a willingness to speak with Brooks and help him “adjust to the Penn environment,” but, according to the athletes, downplayed their complaints about Pavlenko, citing them as a matter of “immaturity.”

During the meeting, Lindner said Dolan asked her and the other throwers if any of them had been physically touched.

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“No,” Lindner said.

“Then it’s not an issue,” Dolan said, according to Lindner.

Another women’s thrower present at the meeting, who was granted anonymity after citing fear of retribution, said that she felt as if Dolan “was trying to … determine the level of severity he should treat it [with],” and that she “didn’t give a f**k what the severity was.” 

“[Pavlenko] was making all of us very uncomfortable, and [Dolan] should’ve taken it seriously at the jump,” the women’s thrower said. 

Later in the meeting, Lindner said she told Dolan she did not feel safe around Pavlenko, to which Dolan responded by saying that despite the throwers’ concerns, Pavlenko would be present at the team’s home Big 5 meet the following day, and that it was Lindner’s decision if she wanted to attend or not.

After this meeting, the women’s throwers were contacted individually by Michele Rovinsky-Mayer, Penn’s associate vice president for equity and Title IX officer, who offered one-on-one meetings with each of them to discuss their experiences — suggesting to Lindner that the meeting “triggered a Title IX process.” According to Lindner, Pavlenko was separated from the women’s team after the meeting, but remained on campus and continued to train with the men’s team.

Lindner said the men’s team had “no idea” the women’s team was experiencing these issues.

“I don’t remember people ever raising a super serious concern to me as the event group captain,” 2022 Wharton graduate Marc Minichello, the Penn throwing captain at the time, said. “In track and field, your performance usually dictates your mood. So if you’re having a bad season, you’re gonna look for some type of a scapegoat in order to correlate that lack of success toward.”

According to text messages reviewed by the DP, Brooks requested to meet with Lindner individually on April 5, 2022. The meeting was held after a team practice in the spectator seating area of Ellen Vagelos Field.

Lindner said Brooks entered the meeting “pissed” and told her that the throwers had “violated his personal integrity” by going to Dolan instead of him. 

Later in the meeting, Brooks assured Lindner that he understood the gravity of the situation. While doing so, he placed his hand on her upper thigh. 

In her Title IX complaint to the University, Lindner wrote that this action “felt like [Brooks] was trying to exert power in a sexual way.”

After their conversation, Brooks told Lindner it was her decision whether or not Pavlenko remained with the program, a choice she said overwhelmed her as a new member of the team.

“I feel like it should be an objective measure,” Lindner said of Pavlenko’s fate. “[It should be]: ‘He has been harassing you, so he’s off the team.’ Not: ‘Your choice. Up to you.’”

Pavlenko left the program in the summer of 2022. 

* * *

After Pavlenko’s departure, Lindner alleged a pattern of what she felt was “retaliatory behavior” from Brooks during her sophomore year.

According to Lindner’s complaint, this behavior included an incident during a team lift in fall 2022 in which Brooks, after Lindner informed him that she was experiencing pain in her left hip, “grabbed [her] hip and massaged it while standing behind [her] without [her] consent.”

Lindner described this event, and Brooks’ previous touching of her thigh, as “extremely disturbing.”

“In both instances, I felt very uncomfortable, because [Brooks] was in a position of power over me,” Lindner wrote in her Title IX complaint.

Lindner also accused Brooks of frequently berating her in front of her teammates, routinely leaving her off team communications, and referring to the Lindner family as “the enemy” to other athletes.

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Lindner’s parents also alleged a shift in the Penn track and field coaching staff’s behavior toward them during Lindner’s sophomore year.

“That first indoor meet of the year, I remember walking right up with my husband to coach Dolan and looking him in the eye, and him looking me in the eye, and [him] turning his back on me and walking away,” 1993 College graduate Kim Lindner, Kira’s mother, claimed. “That was when I knew that this was never going to be right. That [Dolan] took it personally.”

At the end of the season, Lindner was left off the team’s roster for the Ivy Heptagonal Championships despite ranking as one of the conference’s top throwers — her season-best mark of 49.07 meters in the hammer throw would have placed 14th out of the 23 athletes at the championships. Lindner also alleged that Penn fell short of the roster limit for the meet, meaning the team chose to send fewer athletes than it could have.

Messages reviewed by the DP show that after Lindner requested clarification on why she was not selected on May 2, 2023, Brooks responded on May 3, 2023 by asking Lindner, “Why do you think you weren’t selected for the Heps lineup?”

That summer, Lindner and her parents acquired legal representation. In June 2023, Lindner lodged a formal Title IX complaint with the University against Brooks.

“Young women go through these types of experiences and just walk away. It’s easier for them to do that,” 1992 Wharton graduate Ari Lindner, Kira’s father, said. “But then sometimes they say, ‘You know what? I need to share my story. Maybe it’ll prevent it from happening in the future.’”

Lindner said she felt the process was “slow rolled” by Penn over the summer after she filed the complaint, and the situation remained unresolved when the new academic year began. With Brooks still on the team and the season approaching, Lindner ultimately decided to leave the program, informing Brooks and Dolan via email on Aug. 25, 2023. 

Brooks and Dolan responded the same day, thanking Lindner for notifying them. Dolan congratulated Lindner on “all [she had] accomplished in track and field.”

Just over a month later, Brooks was named the throwing coach at Harvard. Title IX expert W. Scott Lewis said there have been institutions that have delayed investigations for political reasons, but it is not the norm. He did not comment on Lindner’s specific situation.

All nine Harvard throwers contacted by the DP declined to comment for this story.

The Lindner family told the DP they are still considering further legal action against Brooks and the University. Penn’s initial Title IX investigation into Brooks and Pavlenko remains open, according to correspondence from investigative officer Lindsay Kenney and Associate Director of the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs Jennifer Rappaport to Lindner on Nov. 26 of this year.

“I started throwing when I was 10. It was something me and my mom did together, because my mom also threw at Penn when she went here,” Lindner said. 

“It’s this thing I spent my entire life doing; it’s what I came to Penn to do. It’s one of my passions," she added. "And it was stripped away, slowly and painfully.”

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2023 College graduate Inumidun Oyebode also recalled a poor experience during her time under Brooks. After walking on to the team as a freshman, Oyebode struggled to match the performance of her recruited teammates, making her a frequent target of Brooks’ criticism.

In one instance, Oyebode severely strained her knee, but because the injury fell short of a full tear, she said Brooks treated “[her] as if [she] had been faking it.” Oyebode also alleged another instance in which a female teammate came to practice “extremely ill,” and informed Brooks of her sickness but was not allowed to leave until she began to cry.

“If [Brooks] wasn’t able to cut you, he would make your life as difficult as possible until you wanted to quit,” Oyebode recalled being told by an assistant coach at the time.

 According to a draft of an email from December 2021 which Oyebode provided to the DP, she reached out to Dolan for help regarding a threat Brooks had made to cut her from the team, adding that she had not been given a “fair chance” to prove herself. Oyebode said the head coach declined to intervene.

“I went to coach Dolan — I emailed him about it and tried to talk to him about it at a meet — and it was very discouraging,” Oyebode said. “[He was] saying it was out of his hands and not really his issue to deal with.”

Oyebode withdrew from the team on Jan. 2, 2022.

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Osezua, also a member of the throwing team, described her own challenges with Dolan.

Osezua found immediate success after joining the team as a freshman in 2020, recording what was then the ninth-best hammer throw mark in program history. Then, in the spring of 2022, Osezua took a yearlong mental health leave from Penn, but returned the following spring and said she did not receive pushback from Dolan regarding her return to the track and field team.

On Oct. 15, 2023, Osezua tore her PCL after a car nearly struck her at the intersection of 45th and Chestnut streets. The injury left her unable to walk, so then-volunteer assistant coach and 2017 College graduate Noah Kennedy-White drove Osezua from her apartment to see the team’s trainer, Moe Louidor, the following evening. 

Kennedy-White confirmed Osezua’s sequence of events in an interview with the DP.

There, Osezua said Louidor claimed that since the injury occurred off campus, Penn would not cover an MRI and that Osezua would have to entirely pay out of pocket. As a result, Osezua said she decided to delay the process until she returned home to Canada, where she could receive the procedure for free. 

In the meantime, Osezua employed a makeshift solution of a knee brace and crutches. Because the injury made it difficult for her to get to class, Osezua dropped down to two course units, making her ineligible to compete athletically. 

Osezua said that her academic advisor, Wally Pansing, then referred her to Student Health Service, where Osezua’s MRI was completed for just a $50 copay. By that time, it was February 2024 — four months after the initial injury. 

Prior to her MRI, Osezua had regained her ability to walk, returned to a full course load, and met with Dolan on Jan. 12, 2024 to discuss her return to the team. This time, Osezua said Dolan told her that he and the other coaches had decided it would be “best for the team” if she did not return.

“I always got the sense that he didn’t want me back because I had taken a mental health [leave],” Osezua said, adding that Dolan’s response to her struggles “felt really fake.”

Osezua said she told Dolan that her absence had resulted from her PCL injury, to which Dolan responded that no one on Penn’s staff was aware of her injury.

“It just comes out like a slap in the face,” Osezua said.

This past summer, Osezua worked at a research lab at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. There, she ran into Louidor, who inquired about the status of her knee and asked how her rehabilitation was going. Louidor was allegedly unaware that Osezua was no longer a part of the team.

When asked if he had told Dolan about Osezua’s injury, Kennedy-White said he “would like to think” that he did.

“At the very least, I was thinking that that information would filter up via the athletic training staff,” he added.

Osezua added that she felt a lack of support from Dolan during her entire tenure on the team, including during her mental health leave.

“I didn’t hear anything from him, and that’s been a running theme — that Dolan is just MIA when it comes to a lot of the [female] throwers,” Osezua said.

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Other Penn athletes reported positive experiences with Dolan and the track and field program at large. College senior thrower Elijah Cook specifically highlighted how Dolan supported him through two season-ending injuries.

“I always felt like my concerns and my health were a priority with coach Dolan,” Cook said. “I believe that's consistent within the whole staff in my experience on the men's side.”

A former men's thrower who requested anonymity for fear of retribution said that the "overall consensus of Brooks as a coach was that he was a fun individual."

"Many of us thought he was a good coach as well," the thrower said. 

As the host of the country’s largest meet, the Penn Relays, and the producer of three Olympians in last summer’s Paris Games, Penn has been long regarded as one of the nation’s premier track and field institutions. Last month, the University officially unveiled the Ott Center for Track and Field, a $69.3 million facility set to host 43 events in its inaugural year.

“[The vision] was to … establish Penn and the city of Philadelphia as a major hub for track and field on the East Coast, the United States, and the world,” Dolan said at the center’s grand opening on Nov. 16. “[A]nd I stand here today to tell you that this facility, among other things that have been happening, are starting to really make that dream a reality.”

But behind the scenes, some of Penn’s athletes face a different reality.

“It was devastating,” Lindner said of her time on the team. “And I had to stop doing something that I loved.”

CAMPUS RESOURCES

The Division of Public Safety’s HELP Line: 215-898-HELP (active 24/7)

Student Health and Counseling (if you have a personal or academic concern and want to talk to someone at Penn): 215-898-7021 (active 24/7)

Penn Women’s Center (resource for students, staff, or faculty)