USA TODAY International Edition
Texas Tech AD Hocutt must go now
For many months, Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt knew there was trouble in his athletic department, specifically within the women’s basketball program. He knew a committee had reviewed numerous allegations of abuse against head coach Marlene Stollings and assistant coach Nikita Lowry Dawkins. He asked for and received a verbal report about the findings.
Weeks went by, and he did nothing. Hocutt knew there were two seasons of damning exit interviews with players. He knew a dozen players transferred out of the program since Stollings took over in March 2018, including seven of her own recruits. And because Hocutt hired Stollings and Lowry Dawkins, a minimal amount of research would have told him that a New Mexico State investigation found that when Lowry Dawkins was head coach there more than 15 years ago, she threatened to kill a player among other abuse allegations that she denied. At the time, Stollings was her assistant.
For months, Hocutt should have known his leadership was required by the student- athletes in his care at Texas Tech. What did he do at that crucial moment in his career? He did absolutely nothing, that’s what he did. He allowed those young athletes to twist in the wind. He failed them all, miserably. He finally mustered an apology to them in a video news conference Friday, but it was shallow and unsatisfying and way too late.
Only when a USA TODAY Sports investigation made public the extent of the alleged abuse earlier last week did Hocutt fire Stollings and Lowry Dawkins. In his news conference, Hocutt offered a whole bunch of jibberish about what he did when, trying to explain away his inaction, but the bottom line is he did nothing to help his women’s basketball players until journalists told the sports world how bad things were at his school.
So now that Stollings and Lowry Dawkins are gone, one big question remains at Texas Tech:
Why does Hocutt still have his job? University leaders probably won’t do a thing, but they sure should. Over the past few days, we have learned a lot about Hocutt, a rising star in college sports whose $ 1.85 million salary for this year makes him the fourth- highestpaid athletic director in the country, according to a survey compiled this spring by Robert Lattinville and Roger Denny, lawyers with the firm Spencer Fane LLP.
For his appalling lack of leadership on allegations of abuse of young athletes, an issue of growing importance in 21st- century sports, and for failing to perform one of his most basic duties as a college sports administrator and quickly protect his athletes, the university’s leaders should fire Hocutt.
How can Texas Tech trust him to do the right thing for student- athletes ever again?
Hocutt now has a record on this topic, and it’s one of inaction and neglect when athletes needed him most.
It’s worth repeating some of the awful things that allegedly happened in the Texas Tech women’s basketball program. One player said she was admonished by coaches for displaying symptoms of depression and was told by Lowry Dawkins to snap a rubber band on her wrist when she had a negative thought. Three international players allegedly were isolated, threatened by coaches and ridiculed over their English language skills. Stollings’ obsession with tracking the players’ heart rates drove two athletes to eschew over- thecounter painkillers to try to use the pain to keep their heart rates spiked.
“It was just the feeling of fear, anxiety, depression,” Mia Castaneda, who transferred from Texas Tech last year, told USA TODAY Sports. “And it wasn’t just a few people – it was our entire team. They were breaking not just athletes, they were breaking people.”
While all this allegedly was going on, five players alleged that strength and conditioning coach Ralph Petrella sexually harassed players, making suggestive comments and using a therapy technique that involved applying pressure to some players’ chests and pubic bones and groins. Petrella, who denied any misconduct, resigned in March. The players say they reported some of Petrella’s comments to Stollings, but she said she didn’t believe them.
Stollings is now gone, presumably out of college sports for good. So too is Lowry Dawkins. We know who should be next.