"From my experience, Coach Kim is professional, hardworking, and genuinely invested in building this program. She took a program that started with fewer than five athletes and helped grow it into a team of around 40, while working toward a new boathouse, advocating for the university to invest in our program, and putting significant resources into our equipment and opportunities. Coaching isn’t always going to look the way every athlete wants it to. She uses data, experiments with lineups and boats, tries different combinations, and sometimes those decisions won’t work. To me, that shows that she is willing to adapt, take risks, and figure out what works best for the team. I also think communication is a huge part of having a positive relationship with a coach. If you feel like you want a stronger connection with your coach, or you feel like something isn’t being understood, communicate that. Coaches aren’t mind readers, and they can only respond to what they know. Building a relationship takes effort from both sides and can grow over time. I also think it’s important not to automatically assume that having stronger communication or a closer relationship with certain athletes means favoritism. People naturally communicate differently with different people. Some athletes are more outspoken, more involved, or make more of an effort to communicate with their coaches. That doesn’t automatically mean they are being favored. Coaches are people too, and they should be able to build genuine professional relationships with their athletes at everyone’s own pace. Our team is very connected, and we spend an enormous amount of time together. We chose to be here, and we show up alongside the same women every day. We’re supposed to support each other, communicate, hold each other accountable, take care of our equipment, and be there for one another. Those expectations are part of being a team. Our first year has given us a lot to be proud of, and I’m excited to see what we can continue to build together. I don’t expect everyone to have the exact same experience or opinion, but I can speak for my own experience: Coach Kim has put a tremendous amount of work into UAlbany Rowing, and I appreciate everything she has done for this program."

"If Covid killed the team, she buried us. I saw that she is now a coach at UAlbany and got them a boat house. She got us a new facility too. It didn’t change the way she treated some of the girls. If you choose to go to UAlbany or anywhere else that she is coaching, make sure you know what you are getting into. Look past the new facility. Know that she plays favorites. Know that she doesn’t care if you are hurt and thinks you are faking. Know that she likes really long hard rows and won’t give you a break to drink. Ask lots of hard questions. Talk to the girls on the team. And look beyond the shiny new thing."

"Almost every aspect of her coaching was poor. As a former athlete of the UAlbany team I was left with a fear of rowing ever again and extremely damaged mental health and esteem after being scrutinized by her. I would say traumatized is an appropriate description. This coach had potential but unfortunately was unprofessional, mean, biased, never coached, unorganized, had double standards, and contributed and encouraged the most toxic team environment I have ever witnessed. She encouraged poor behavior in her athletes and turned them on eachother. It seemed like she got joy out of bullying her athletes that’s how consistent it was. On top of her mistreatment she also refused to provide helpful coaching and advice. Would never give corrections or adjustments and just sat in silence. Many of my teammates left the team and the driving factor was her for each one. Could not recommend less! I would never wish my experience on anyone."

"She clearly has no idea how to coach. She just keeps burning us out (especially last year). You’ll never have a rest day and she makes us do too many hours. This is for Albany rowing btw."

"I ain’t gonna rehash the same vibe. Coach Kim she alright to me but she drove off folk including a good coxswain and a really good rower and made other nice ones leave. I ain’t complainin cuz she treats me a favorite but you best watch out if you in her bad side."

"She is the biggest liar ever. Don’t believe anything she tells you. She only cares about herself and will manipulate everyone around her to get what she wants"

"She thinks a boathouse is going to magically fix all of her underlying issues with the team. It’s quite obvious that she has no idea what the f**k she is doing, she needs a wake up call. Someone will punch her in the coming years. I hope it’s soon."

"Avoid her at all costs. I’m a current rower at Albany and she is making me so miserable and uncomfortable"

"Actual fart bucket. AVOID AT ALL COST. Just bullies you when you’re not a her favorite precious perfect rower."

"She’s sooo mean to her athletes. I walked on and I’ve been having such a horrible experience."

"I’m at Albany rn. She yells at us even when we haven’t done anything wrong and lets her favorite athletes get away with anything. I’m always upset after practice and I’m terrified of her. If you want a toxic head coach then Albany is the place for you"

"I’m a current rower at Albany. She drove a few girls off the team and bullies you if you’re not her favorite. She doesn’t care about your physical or mental health and babies her favorites. If you value your happiness then I don’t recommend coming here…"

"Incredibly mean, picks favorites, if you’re not considered a favorite rower kiss the water goodbye."

"This is actually a rating for UAlbany. Don’t believe the quick pick words because the rating system is broke and gives same words to all. Like lowkey, look at all the words is the same. But like for reals, this is about Kim, the big B, and not the rating system. She thinks she can buy us with a boathouse. That’s not enough to compete with how bad she is. Makes us feel anything but “special” like she told the news folk. If UAlbany won’t do anything about her abuse maybe Silhouette Glasses can help us get rid of her."

"She was just mean. One girl on the team said something to recruits that she shouldn’t have and Coach let her get away with it but punished everyone else even those of us who weren’t there. This is how she is with everything. Got a new boathouse at Albany and she only posed for pictures with her favorites. Made the rest of us feel so insignificant."

"She was awful"

"She plays favorites. There were times when the whole team was punished for something one person did, while the person who actually caused the problem didn’t seem to have any consequences. It also seemed like some athletes could get away with things that others couldn’t, which definitely gave the impression that she had favorites. She also did not care if someone was injured. At times it seemed like athletes were expected to just keep pushing even when they were hurt or needed time to recover. There is a difference between pushing athletes to work hard and running them into the ground. I don’t think that line was always respected. I also don’t think injured athletes always felt supported or like they were still an important part of the team when they couldn’t practice or compete. At times, it felt like performance and winning were more important than the athletes themselves. She doesn’t care about athletes as people, unless they are her favorites otherwise she just cares about what you can do for the team."

"Brought the program back at Nova, she gave me the opportunity to be a NCAA athlete in a new sport. Was patient with all of as we learned and taught us to be better teammates. Grateful for everything she taught me and love Kim Kiwi, always felt like she cared about me. Without all the things she did this past year, nsu would never have been able to have a team. Sad she left but thankful her and Emily were my coaches. "

"good person and coach. got along with well, cared about me outside of practice. enjoyed her sense of humor. workouts were challenging. team culture we joined as freshmen was rough, prolly from covid and coaching change. could tell she tried to make it better, took a lot of time. "

"MSU made a huge mistake hiring her. Abusive, manipulative, and a liar. Wasn’t even trusted to be with athletes alone by the time she was fired. "

"Did not have an open mind, over trained"

"She was my coach through a coaching change, covid, the death of a teammate, and a shooting on campus. She was understanding and compassionate in all those situations towards our team and staff, to an extreme. I think people sometimes took advantage of her being a nice person then lost their s**t when she set a boundary. I grew tremendously as an athlete and person because of her, I have nothing but the utmost respect and gratitude for working with her. I felt like she cared about the team and was knowledgeable but never really had the opportunity to coach a normal team due to constant tragedy and crisis management. The biggest issue I had with her was she hired staff who continuously undermined her, created a lot of division that was unnecessary. She should’ve fired most of the staff on numerous occasions - Austin, Kaitlin, Ronnie, Veronika, Farrah, Egan, Maddie - were HORRIBLE staff members. Outright bad at their jobs, seemed like she was constantly doing everyone’s work. It seemed like certain staff members were constantly working against her and trying to get the team to join them. She also kept people on the roster that didn’t belong, you can’t do the workouts but keep complaining? Just stop. The haters are those she was too kind to, they would’ve never been happy and they aren’t happy now either. They just wanted the attention they got from complaining. To say she didn’t care about you or respect you is a lie, there were no investigations or incidents, you’re being petty and posting lies. She deserved better than how many people treated her. "