Former Quinnipiac women’s lacrosse head coach Tanya “TK” Kotowicz’s nine-count lawsuit filed against the university alleges much more than previously believed behind her January 2024 termination.
In the complaint filed on Aug. 21, Kotowicz and her lawyer claim that Quinnipiac subjected her to “sex discrimination” and treated Kotowicz “differently that it treated male coaches,” and provided “less support and resources to the Women’s Lacrosse Team than it provided to men’s athletic programs.”
They claim that the athletic department housed a culture that tried to silence, intimidate, harass and retaliate against female coaches who raised concerns.
This is not the first time that Quinnipiac has found itself on the other side of a Title IX lawsuit. In a 2009 significant class action case Biediger v. Quinnipiac University, the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut found that Quinnipiac violated Title IX by discrimination against its female-student athletes on the basis of sex and denying them equal opportunities.
A 2024 investigation from The Chronicle found that Kotowicz’s termination was the result of a two-month internal investigation for allegedly playing an injured athlete, and not her “leaving the program,” as the initial press release suggested.
However, the athlete-in-question’s father told The Chronicle that “ I don’t want her taking the fall for something that, from our perspective, didn’t happen.”
Kotowicz is seeking monetary relief for lost wages and compensation, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life’s activities and harm to reputation, among other factors.
Here are the allegations:
QUESTIONS ABOUT SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Kotowicz and her attorney Todd Steigman of Madsen, Prestley & Parenteau LLC, cite a September 2017 incident alleging Stephanie Matthews, Quinnipiac’s director of human resources business partners, subjected Kotowicz to discriminatory and sexist questions.
“Stephanie Matthews inquired about Plantiffs sexual orientation; asked whether Plaintiff was dating an assistant coach who was also female; and asked about the housing arrangement between Plaintiff and the female assistant coach and whether Plaintiff knew the meaning of nepotism,” the complaint reads.
Kotowicz says she explained that she and the assistant coach were not dating and were just roommates, but in order to refute the accusation, she was “forced to clarify her sexual orientation and tell Stephanie Matthews that she was not gay.”
The following year, Kotowicz was part of a performance meeting with Athletic Director Greg Amodeo, Senior Associate Athletic Director Bill Mecca, Deputy Athletic Director Sarah Fraser and Matthews. Matthews and Fraser met with Kotowicz and once again questioned her supposed romantic relationship with the same female assistant coach, the complaint alleges.
“Stephanie Matthews also told Plaintiff that if she lied, it could lead to termination of her employment,” the complaint states.
Under U.S. equal employment law, it is “illegal for an employer to make any employment decision because of a person’s race, color, religion, sex (including transgender status, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.”
PAYMENT DIFFERENCES
The complaint alleges that Quinnipiac denied Kotowicz equitable pay and paid her and other women’s lacrosse coaches less than it paid the coaches of the men’s lacrosse team, “even though the female coaches had more years of coaching experience and more advanced educational degrees.”
Steigman alleges another incident where Quinnipiac approved the promotion of an assistant coach to associate head coach but Fraser and Amodio refused to provide the newly promoted coach with a salary increase.
Instead, they allegedly told Kotowicz that if she wanted to increase the coach’s salary, then Kotowicz needed to take money that had been budgeted for another assistant coach position to do so.
When Kotowicz objected that the women’s associate head coach should receive equivalent salary to the men’s lacrosse associate head coach, the complaint says Quinnipiac maintained its refusal.
Kotowicz claims that when she asked Quinnipiac for additional $2,000 for one of the female assistant coaches, Fraser and Amodeo refused.
This led the female assistant coach to leave the program, a departure Fraser allegedly blamed Kotowicz for.
Equal pay between people of different sexes in substantially equal jobs is regulated under EPA, so if there is an inequality “employers must raise wages to equalize pay but may not reduce the wages of other individuals.”
In a similar case, in 2024, Harvard’s women’s ice hockey coach Katey Stone sued the university over allegations of gender bias, unfair pay and retaliation. In April 2025, a judge denied Harvard’s motion to dismiss the case.
FAILURE TO PROVIDE ATHLETIC TRAINERS AND RESPOND TO RAISED CONCERNS
The Chronicle’s 2024 investigation reviewed documents that indicated that Quinnipiac terminated Kotowicz following a two-month internal investigation into allegations that she forced an injured player to compete in an October 2023 offseason scrimmage.
This documentation — a combination of email correspondences, text message exchanges, screenshots and video evidence — raised serious questions about the veracity of that reasoning and about the safety of some of the university’s athletic training practices.
In the complaint, Kotowicz claims that the university retaliated against her for “communicating concerns to Quinnipiac’s administration and sport medicine about the health and safety of players on her team, and Quinnipiac’s failure to provide adequate medical and athletic training coverage and support for her team — in contrast to the men’s teams.”
The complaint supports these findings as it states that Kotowicz has complained about the multiple failures to provide medical coverage at practices or 1-day road tournaments, the lack of clarity and communication between athletic trainers and the coaches and inaccurate injury reports and denial of treatment for players on the team.
Kotowicz also claims that Quinnipiac consistently provided an athletic trainer to travel with the men’s lacrosse team.
Last year, The Chronicle reviewed an Oct. 3 email where Kotowicz identified inconsistencies and ambiguities with the team’s injury protocols, saying that athletes were being cleared to play in games without having practiced.
She received a reply for Quinnipiac’s Head Athletic Trainer Dan Smith the following day, though documentation of the email chain shows his response was only vaguely relevant to her concerns. Instead of addressing the communication aspect of athlete injury management, the athletic training administrator spoke only to the necessity of a gradual return-to-play protocol.
The complaint later alleges that Smith wrongfully accused her of playing an injured player in October 2023 and harassed her for information that his department should have organized.
Kotowicz claims she told Smith during that meeting that she was “uncomfortable with the way that he was speaking to her” and said that “he would never talk to a male coach like he was speaking to her.”
In addition, Kotowicz claims that she raised the health and safety concerns directly to Fraser on numerous occasions but when she did so, Fraser would “often lose her temper with her.”
KOTOWICZ’S TERMINATION
According to the complaint, Fraser and Matthews were the ones to inform Kotowicz of her termination.
Because most Quinnipiac coaches are not under contract, Connecticut law provides the university the right to terminate their employment “at will” — that is, without providing a reason.
Following her termination, Kotowicz claims she has been unable to obtain other employment as a collegiate lacrosse coach, suffered economic damages and compensatory damages — including emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life’s activities and harm to reputation.
Kotowicz’s replacement is current head coach Jordan Christopher, who is currently married to Nick Solari, Quinnipiac’s associate athletic director of athletic communications.
At the time of publication, neither Kotowicz’s attorney nor Quinnipiac’s General Counsel Aaron Trump has yet responded to The Chronicle’s inquiries.
Ava Highland contributed to this report.
