Head coach Julie Farlow ’97 suddenly departed from her role as the Jan Rock Zubrow ’77 Head Coach of softball, according to an announcement made by Director of Athletics Nicki Moore on Thursday.
The announcement comes midway into the softball season, with six games left to go. Taking over is former assistant coach Tara Tembey, who will serve as interim head coach for the remainder of the 2025-2026 season.
During Farlow’s time with the team, softball earned an overall record of 107-219-1 and an Ivy League record of 51-109. She originally joined the squad as an assistant coach in 2002, taking the reins in 2015 after the retirement of previous head coach Dick Blood.
"I want to extend my sincere thanks to Coach Farlow for her significant contributions to Cornell Softball over the years," Moore said in the statement. "As a Hall of Fame player and a dedicated coach, her impact on the program and its student-athletes will always be an integral part of Cornell Softball's history."
Farlow’s years at Cornell were not without controversy. In 2019, seven current and former softball athletes alleged that Farlow had repeatedly mistreated athletes, citing incidents of ignored overuse injuries, neglect of concussion protocol and disregard of mental health issues.
Andy Noel, director of athletics at the time, stated to The Sun that he was “aware that some softball players are not happy with their team experience and are critical of the coaches and the department.”
“If I deem it necessary, I take appropriate action,” Noel said. Athletes reported filling out end-of-year surveys, in which they indicated their discontent with the team’s leadership. Additionally, students spoke directly to the Associate Director of Athletics and a Deputy Director. However, no change was made.
After the article reporting on Farlow’s behavior, 52 Cornell softball alumni and two coaches who had worked alongside her voiced their support for Farlow in a Letter to the Editor submitted to The Sun.
“As alumni who have played for, played with, and worked alongside Coach Farlow over the 20 years of her involvement with Cornell softball, we find [the article’s] characterization objectively false, and find that it runs counter to our own experience as members of the program,” the letter said.
A responding Letter to the Editor from Christopher Dole, the parent of a former athlete, argued that only four of the 54 alumni had Farlow as a coach, and each only played at Cornell for one year while she was 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,” Dole wrote.
Between 2016 and 2018, eight athletes left the team. Since 2022, four athletes have left. Currently, softball has three seniors on its roster.
The interim head coach, Tembey, is in her sixth year as assistant coach at Cornell after previous three-year stints at the University of the Pacific, Colgate University, and San Francisco State University. She has had a heavy hand in the development of the Red’s hitting, aiding the team to post the most home runs in the Ivy League in 2023. Cornell currently has the second-highest batting average in the conference at .312.
"We are excited about the future of Cornell Softball and are eager to see Tara lead the team through the remainder of this season and through the next," Moore said in a statement to Cornell Athletics. "This is an important time for our alumni and supporters to reconnect with the program, and to support our incredible current student-athletes.”
Moore and Tembey could not be reached for comment.
The team looks to the final two series of the 2025 season with uncertainty. This weekend’s games at Columbia, and the following weekend’s play at Harvard, are all that stand between the Red and the Ivy League Tournament.
To make postseason play, Cornell would need to improve its conference standings from sixth to fourth within a mere six games. The last time the Red finished in the top four ranks of the Ivy League was 2012.
Alexis Rogers is the sports editor on the 143rd editorial board. She is in the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts & Sciences, and she can be reached at arogers@cornellsun.com.
