On Wednesday, February 26, 2025, Mechelle Lewis Freeman made a shocking announcement on her social media: she was no longer the USA Head Women’s Relay Coach.
A stark black-and-white Instagram post featured a photo of the USA women’s 4x100m relay team celebrating their gold medal and World Championship record while in Budapest in 2023. Alongside it, her words:
“My time as the USATF Head Women’s Relay Coach has come to an end. Thank you to my family and to those who believed in me. Thank you, Lord, for choosing me to show the world how to WIN against it all. To the athletes, keep making history and much love.”
What?
Mechelle Lewis Freeman was let go?
The woman who led Team USA to multiple World and Olympic gold medals, broke world records, and became the most successful relay coach in American history—gone?
The woman whose Gold medal winning relay team featured in the Nike Super Bowl ad which is about challenging societal expectations and empowering women in sports and life? “You can’t be demanding. You can’t be relentless. You can’t put yourself first. So…put yourself first.”
In the days that followed Mechelle’s announcement, posts from coaches, athletes, and supporters flooded social media, expressing heartbreak and confusion. Why would USATF part ways with someone whose results were undeniable?
Like many others, I reached out to Mechelle, hoping there was a logical explanation. Maybe it was a personal decision, a tough call she had to make. I was wrong. Mechelle confirmed that her contract was not renewed and without any explanation.
A Record of Excellence
📸 Left to right: Melissa Jefferson, Twanisha Terry, Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas, Tamara Clark, Tamari Davis and Coach Mechelle Lewis Freeman after winning Gold at the 2023 World Athletics Championships.
For those unfamiliar with her record as Head Coach of USA Women’s Relay teams, here is what she achieved since taking over in 2022:
- Most successful USATF relay coach in history.
- Restored USA women’s 4 x 100m relays to dominance, after five years without a major global championship win.
- 2022 World Championships: Gold in both the 4x100m and 4x400m relays.
- USA’s 4x100m team ran the fastest time ever on U.S. soil, pulling off one of the biggest upsets in track and field history by defeating Jamaica’s sprint powerhouses.
- 2023 World Championships: Gold in the 4x100m and world championship record; Gold in the 4x400m mixed relay setting a world record.
- 2024: Undefeated season with the USA women’s relays, including the World Athletics Relay Championships and the Paris Olympic Games.
- Paris Olympics: Gold in the 4x100m and 4x400m; World Record in the mixed relay.
Beyond the medals, Mechelle dedicated herself to raising the profile of her athletes. Through media appearances, podcasts, and interviews, she championed USA Track & Field.
Before becoming Head Coach, she served as an assistant coach for Team USA’s relays from 2015, working with both senior and junior teams, seeing national and world records.
A Perspective from the Track & Field Community; an Op-Ed
📸 Left to Right: Sha’Carri Richardson, Gabby Thomas, Coach Mechelle Lewis Freeman, Twanisha Terry and Melissa Jefferson after winning Gold at the Paris Olympic Games.
Below is an exclusive op-ed from a member of the track and field community, expressing the deep frustration over Mechelle’s dismissal:
[Op-Ed]
“The decision to part ways with Coach Mechelle Freeman defies reason. Here is a coach whose results transcended expectations, whose leadership elevated Team USA to a level of dominance unparalleled in recent history, and yet, somehow, she is gone. How could this happen? How could an individual who delivered success so consistently, with gold medals as undeniable proof of her impact, be let go? It’s a move so counterintuitive that it demands scrutiny—not just of the decision itself but of the system that enabled it.
Freeman’s tenure with Team USA was nothing short of extraordinary. She took an already elite group of athletes and pushed them further, transforming relay events into an art form. Her innovative strategies led her teams to victories and record-breaking performances time and time again. Yet, despite these achievements, Freeman worked in an environment that wasn’t able to embrace her leadership. And still, she succeeded. Her resilience should have been celebrated, her strategies further invested in, her presence considered essential. But instead, she was dismissed.
What does such a decision say about the system that made it, overlooking measurable success? Freeman didn’t just win medals; she built a legacy of precision, teamwork, and innovation. Choosing to lose someone with that level of expertise is an institutional breakdown.
Throughout history, outstanding individuals have often been met with resistance. Their brilliance can upset established norms, their ideas can disrupt the comfort of mediocrity, and their presence can make others feel overshadowed. But in any organization that claims to care about results, these tensions should never outweigh the contributions of someone as exceptional as Freeman. If performance truly matters in a results-driven environment, it leaves us to wonder the basis of this decision.
The story of Mechelle Freeman’s departure isn’t just a cautionary tale for Team USA; it’s a broader reflection on how institutions handle talent. It forces us to ask difficult questions. Who, exactly, is making these decisions? Are the people tasked with guiding the organization truly aligned with its goals? How does an environment that should foster greatness end up losing one of its brightest stars? These aren’t trivial concerns; they go to the heart of what leadership and vision really mean.
Coach Mechelle Freeman will undoubtedly thrive in her next chapter—her talent and resilience ensure that. But the organization she leaves behind must now contend with the fallout of its own choices and the haunting realization that it let go of someone who made winning look easy, even when it wasn’t. Decisions like these don’t just reflect poorly on the institution—they leave us all wondering how such a glaring misstep could ever be allowed to happen. And perhaps that is the most troubling question of all.”
A Bigger Issue: The Systemic Discrimination Against Female Coaches. Support from Carole Bam.
📸 Coach Carole Bam, Head Coach of the Belgium Women’s 4 x 400m relay team and 4 x 400m mixed team
Mechelle’s dismissal is not an isolated incident. Since Paris, several highly successful female coaches have been quietly removed by their federations and teams despite their undeniable success. There have been stories of misogyny, discrimination, and prejudice all hidden behind a wall of medals, success, and celebration.
Carole Bam, the Head Coach of the Belgian 4×400 women’s relay team kick named the Cheetahs and the mixed 4 x 400m team, who led her Cheetahs to their highest-ever position at an Olympic Games, has shared her thoughts on Mechelle’s situation, as well as her own experiences.
“As a female coach, I feel compelled to highlight the inequalities we face, often overlooked or completely ignored. Gender stereotypes remain deeply entrenched, with the misguided belief that men are inherently more qualified to coach, even when it comes to women’s teams. The underrepresentation of women in coaching roles, especially at the highest levels, is a critical issue. This not only limits the visibility of female role models but also stifles the inspiration and motivation for future generations. Moreover, women often face greater barriers to accessing training and professional networks.
Even when women break through and secure coaching positions, they still face unequal treatment. They are often paid less than their male counterparts, have fewer opportunities to coach men’s or high-level teams, and are frequently overlooked in terms of recognition and media coverage.
Cultural and social barriers add to these challenges. Balancing work and personal life is often more difficult for women due to societal expectations that place a greater family burden on them. They also face sexism and discrimination and often have to prove their legitimacy more than men.
Despite these inequalities and the obstacles they face, there are coaches who do an incredible job. They bring home medals, and not just any medals, but gold medals.
They end up losing their jobs despite the excellent results they achieve.
This isn’t a hypothetical scenario—it’s a harsh reality. One of our own, a coach who has delivered remarkable achievements, has just lost her job despite her exceptional work.
I can’t just stand by and watch, because today it’s Mechelle, but tomorrow it could be me.,
Mechelle you have my full support, and I think all these brave women, who, like me, fight every day in this field, feel concerned and offer you their support.”
While there have been steps toward gender equality in athletics—such as the 2023 efforts to create balanced Council leadership within World Athletics—one area remains stagnant: high-performance coaching.
- It is estimated that less than 5% of international athletics federations have a female Performance Director or Head Coach.
- Only 10% of coaching accreditations at major championships go to women.
- At the Paris Olympics, only 8.8% of competing athletes had a female personal coach.
Despite numerous initiatives aimed at developing female coaches, there remains a critical lack of pathways and opportunities for these highly skilled professionals. The problem is not a woman problem, its a system problem.
Through our work with the Female Coaching Network, we have relentlessly pushed for change—demanding systemic reform in the education, development, and selection process of female coaches and coaches overall. Since 2018 we have attended many of the major championships across the world and in Europe, speaking in front of various Federations and even President of World Athletics Seb Coe himself. We have urged the athletics world to implement:
- Transparent selection policies for team staff.
- A global coaching register to prevent banned coaches from resurfacing in other countries.
- Investment in structured career pathways for female coaches.
Mechelle’s and Carole’s experiences confirm a grim reality: no matter how good you are, no matter how much success you achieve, and no matter how hard you work, as a woman in high-performance coaching, you will never receive the respect or career security your male peers enjoy.
That must change. And it must change now.
Since USATFs restructure of which they dubbed a “reorgainzation to sustain historic podium success at LA28”, an all male high performance staff is now in place.