A former Cal softball pitcher has filed a lawsuit alleging that head coach Chelsea Spencer pursued a coercive sexual relationship with her for nearly two years, then retaliated by cutting her playing time and ultimately removing her from the team after she tried to end things. The suit, filed in Alameda County Superior Court last Monday, names both Spencer and the University of California's Regents as defendants, arguing that campus leaders were negligent in hiring, training and supervising athletics staff.
According to the lawsuit, as reported by The Mercury News, Spencer targeted the player for attention almost immediately after the pitcher arrived at Cal in 2023 on a full athletic scholarship, having been recruited as a highly touted pitching prospect who dreamed of playing professionally. The two allegedly had sex several times beginning on a road trip in May 2024 and continuing through spring 2025, with Spencer sending the student text or Instagram messages every day. The suit states plainly that “over time, plaintiff no longer felt that she possessed meaningful freedom to simply refuse Spencer and walk away.”
The complaint alleges Spencer gave the player gifts, including AirPods worth approximately $400 and roughly $450 in direct payments, and that the pitcher received greater playing opportunities when she yielded to the coach's advances. When the student resisted, the lawsuit claims, Spencer directed anger and frustration toward the entire team. The player reportedly felt controlled by Spencer's coercion, emotional pressure, threats and coaching authority throughout the relationship.
A Breakup, a Threat and a Benching
The student tried to end the relationship in April 2025, according to the lawsuit, and Spencer responded by threatening to kill herself. The coach then allegedly barred the pitcher from a scheduled game, and the suit describes an environment where “Spencer's conduct toward plaintiff was extreme, outrageous and beyond all bounds of conduct ordinarily tolerated in a civilized society.” The lawsuit also claims Spencer demanded the student keep the relationship secret, deny it if asked and protect her.
By May 2025, the pitcher had been removed from the team entirely, missing her whole senior-year season, according to the complaint. The suit says the scandal derailed her ambitions to play professional softball, costing her both a final year of collegiate competition and a shot at a pro career.
Warnings That Went Up the Chain
The lawsuit alleges that concerns about Spencer reached university officials well before her resignation. A pitching coach and an associate head coach both reportedly knew of a relationship between Spencer and the pitcher by December 2023, and a different pitching coach and Spencer's own wife knew of it by February 2025, according to the complaint. Two graduate student-athletes reported concerns about Spencer and her wife's relationships with students to supervisory athletics personnel in May 2025, describing the dynamics as “weirdly close,” the suit states.
The complaint further alleges that Spencer discussed the relationship with Gordon Bayne, the University of California's associate athletics director for sports administration, before the pitcher was removed from the team in May 2025. UC Berkeley's Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination received a report about Spencer in June 2025, followed by another report the same month regarding a possibly physical relationship with the pitcher, and a similar report arrived the following week, per the lawsuit. Players also complained of favoritism and differential treatment within the program, the suit claims.
Under California Education Code Section 66281.8 and University of California Title IX policy, athletic coaches and staff are classified as “responsible employees” obligated to report any known or suspected sexual harassment or prohibited relationships to campus officials. UC Berkeley's own Policy on Conflicts of Interest Arising out of Consensual Relationships explicitly bans romantic or sexual relations where a power differential exists, warning that unequal authority increases students' vulnerability to coercion, favoritism and abuse.
Resignation Followed a Contract Extension
Spencer ended her five-year tenure as Cal's head coach in June 2025. Notably, then-Athletic Director Jim Knowlton had signed her to a contract extension just four months earlier, in February 2025 — during the very period the lawsuit alleges the relationship and coercion were ongoing, according to Sports Illustrated. Knowlton himself retired effective July 1, 2025, closing out a seven-year tenure that drew repeated public criticism over the athletic department's handling of coaching misconduct allegations, with deputy athletic directors stepping into co-AD roles in his wake.
Before taking over as head coach in 2020, Spencer was an All-American shortstop for the Golden Bears from 2002 to 2005 and won an NCAA national championship with the program in 2002. As head coach from 2021 to 2025, she compiled a 153-108-2 record and led Cal to three consecutive NCAA tournament appearances from 2023 through 2025. Reporters' attempts to reach Spencer for comment were unsuccessful, and Cal Berkeley's communications team did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
Program Left Reeling
Spencer's abrupt resignation triggered an immediate roster collapse. All seven qualifying starting position players and three main pitchers entered the transfer portal, according to the same Sports Illustrated report, leaving the program to rebuild almost from scratch ahead of the 2026 season. Compounding the upheaval, the team was forced to play its entire 2026 home schedule away from Berkeley, at venues in Sacramento and Saratoga, due to major facility renovations at Cal Softball Stadium.
The case also lands amid a broader reckoning for Cal Athletics. A 2023 independent investigation, which cost the university $2 million, led to the termination of longtime swim coach Teri McKeever after years of unaddressed abuse complaints, a pattern that mirrors the delayed institutional response now alleged in Spencer's case.
Key questions remain open, including whether internal OPHD investigations were completed before Spencer's departure and whether individual associate athletic directors met their mandatory reporting obligations once they learned of the relationship in late 2023 and early 2025. How the University of California Regents will respond to the negligent-supervision claims has not yet been made public.
