The Utah gymnastics team has moved on from coach Tom Farden after multiple gymnasts said they were subjected to abusive coaching while at Utah.
The Utah athletic department shared the news of Farden’s departure from the program on Tuesday, saying that the two ‘mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately.’
‘The past several months have been an extremely challenging time for our gymnastics program,’ athletic director Mark Harlan said in a statement. ‘Changes like this are never easy, and only come after extensive analysis and discussion. In this case, the decision provides necessary clarity and stability for our student-athletes and prevents further distraction from their upcoming season.’
Carly Dockendorf, who was named interim head coach of the Red Rocks when Farden was placed on administrative leave, will continue to oversee the team.
Kara Eaker, a two-time gold medal winner at the world championships and an alternate for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, was the first athlete to report the alleged abuse. In an Instagram post, she did not name Farden, but said she was ‘a victim of verbal and emotional abuse’ during her time training at Utah. She said she was retiring from gymnastics and withdrawing her enrollment as a student at the University of Utah.
Four days later, former Red Rocks gymnast Kim Tessen made a statement that did name Farden, and she decried her treatment by the Utah program.
“None of those coaching tactics are normal or healthy,’ she said. ‘It is not normal or healthy for your coach to make you feel physically unsafe. It is not normal or healthy to be broken down to the point where you don’t believe your life is worth living. Success is possible without being degraded and humiliated.”
In making the decision to place Farden on administrative leave, Utah did not address the complaints of either Eaker or Tessen, instead referring back to what it had said after an independent investigator had cleared Farden of abusive coaching.
In a report issued in September, Husch Blackwell concluded Farden ‘did not engage in any severe, pervasive or egregious acts of emotional or verbal abuse.” Nor did he “engage in any acts of physical abuse, emotional abuse or harassment as defined by SafeSport Code,” the report said.
Farden did, however, make at least one comment Husch Blackwell investigators classified as degrading. There were reports of others, but they could not be corroborated. Farden also “more likely than not threw a stopwatch and a cellular telephone in frustration in the presence of student-athletes,” the report said, but the incidents weren’t deemed abusive because they were isolated and not severe.
