Kathy Rodolph, the winningest softball coach in New Mexico State University history, and her associate head coach Catherine Heifner were both gone from the program by late October 2025. Now, newly surfaced records show that their departures followed years of internal complaints alleging sexual harassment, sexual assault, and failures to protect players within the Las Cruces program.
According to a report from KFOX14/CBS4, an investigation by the Las Cruces Sun-News uncovered records detailing allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and failures to protect players dating back to 2021. Reporters compiled a 375-page document after filing 18 public records requests, and that document, per the report, showed an alleged toxic culture within NMSU's softball program. KFOX14/CBS4 says it reached out to NMSU for comment, and the university's athletics department had none to offer at the time.
Rodolph spent 22 seasons leading the Aggies, compiling a school-record 635-557 mark and steering the team to six WAC regular season titles and four NCAA Regional appearances, according to New Mexico State University Athletics. That long, decorated tenure is part of what makes the manner of her exit so jarring to those who followed the program.
Two Very Different Exits
Despite both coaches leaving around the same time, the mechanics of their departures were not identical. Records obtained through public records requests in January showed that Heifner was terminated for cause in October 2025, while Rodolph's contract had actually expired back on June 30, 2025 — meaning she had been working full-time without a signed contract for months before receiving her own termination notice on October 29, 2025, according to Sports Illustrated.
Notably, the Sun-News investigation, as reported by KFOX14/CBS4, did not conclude that the sexual misconduct allegations caused the departures of Rodolph or Heifner. Instead, the outlet reported that NMSU redacted the specific reasons for the coaches' terminations from the records it released. Sports Illustrated's review of those same records found that the university cited statutory privacy exemptions covering “matters of opinion in personnel files or student records” to justify withholding the exact rationale.
The 375 pages of incident documentation were generated by NMSU's Office of Institutional Equity between 2021 and 2024, per the outlet's reporting, logging multiple internal claims over those three years. The gap between those early complaints and the coaches' eventual exits in the fall of 2025 remains one of the central, unresolved questions hanging over the program.
A Leadership Change at the Top
The timing of the firings lines up closely with a shakeup atop NMSU's athletic department. The October 2025 dismissals came just three weeks after the university appointed Joe Fields as its new Director of Athletics on October 8, 2025, according to New Mexico State University Athletics. Fields took over an athletic department already under scrutiny following the departure of former Athletic Director Mario Moccia, who was removed from his post in January 2025. Moccia has since filed a formal complaint against the university's Board of Regents alleging wrongful termination, a dispute Hoodline previously reported is still working its way through the legal system.
In the wake of Rodolph and Heifner's exits, assistant coach Benet Higgs signed an interim head coach agreement on November 30, 2025, which raised her salary to $70,000 for the 2026 season, according to Sports Illustrated's reporting. Higgs was eventually named permanent head coach. The coaching upheaval also had a direct roster impact: star player Desirae Spearman, the 2024 Conference USA Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year, entered the transfer portal following the 2025 season and left for Texas Tech University, per New Mexico State University Athletics.
Part of a Broader Pattern at NMSU
The softball program's turmoil arrives amid wider scrutiny of student-athlete safety across NMSU's athletic department. In December 2024, the New Mexico Department of Justice published a 69-page report containing 35 safety and accountability recommendations for NMSU Athletics, stemming from a separate 2022-2023 hazing and sexual assault investigation in the men's basketball program, according to Source NM. Legal fallout from that basketball scandal is also still unfolding: a Las Cruces judge recently issued a warrant after a former NMSU basketball player skipped his hazing trial, as Hoodline reported earlier this month.
This is not the first time the softball program has seen law enforcement get involved in internal conflict. Back in April 2011, an NMSU softball player was arrested by local police on suspicion of assaulting a teammate, according to a report at the time from the Arizona Daily Star. That episode, more than a decade before the current allegations, underscores that questions about culture and player safety within the program are not entirely new. For now, NMSU has not detailed publicly what specifically prompted Rodolph and Heifner's departures, leaving that question — and the years-long gap between the earliest complaints and the coaches' exits — unresolved.
