On the same day in January 2022 that Mackenzie Wartenberger told her runners that she was resigning for family reasons, the University of Wisconsin sang the praises of the women’s cross country coach in a tweet.
Some members of that team said they couldn’t believe their coach was being celebrated. Five women who ran for Wartenberger told the Wisconsin State Journal in interviews that they experienced mental abuse and a toxic culture on her team. One former runner, Brogan MacDougall, and her mother reported the abuse to athletics officials and the academic side of the university.
“It was just the biggest slap in the face,” MacDougall said. “It confirmed what I had been feeling the whole time: that the UW staff, everyone involved, didn’t actually care about us and what we were going through. It was all about protecting UW and their staff. So instead of having this scandal or acknowledging that we were really seriously abused on this team, they just let her go quietly.”
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Wartenberger was the first of two Wisconsin coaches in a span of four seasons to resign publicly on their own terms despite accusations of verbal abuse and other issues that had been reported to athletic department administrators…