CSU AD WAS TOLD LAST YEAR ABOUT EUSTACHY

Parker was told Eustachy’s earlier issues were still there

Colorado State athletic director Joe Parker was told last year that the culture of fear and intimidation men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy admitted to establishing during the 2013-14 season remained unchanged in the years afterward, a former team trainer said. Such conduct would violate terms of Eustachy’s employment.

Eustachy was given a zero-tolerance policy regarding his behavior after an internal investigation in 2014 concluded that the coach verbally abused players and staff members, threw chairs and unopened soda cans, punted basketballs and punched whiteboards. Eustachy was told then by former athletic director Jack Graham that any further violation would result in the termination of his contract with cause.

But Mac McDonald, the CSU men’s basketball athletic trainer from 2013-16, said starting in the summer of 2014 Eustachy was again verbally abusing players.

“Everything went back to business as usual,” McDonald said in a phone interview Tuesday.

After the 2014 investigation, Eustachy was not allowed to be alone with his team the rest of the season and was required to have Graham or another senior athletic department official monitor his interactions with players at all times. All practices were required to be filmed with audio so that they could be reviewed by the athletic department.

“Everything got better for a few weeks. There was always someone from the administration around watching,” McDonald said. “But then a few months later, (CSU president Tony) Frank fired Graham, and Larry was back to constantly attacking kids in practice and no one was there to watch.”

In the 2014 investigation, Graham recommended that Eustachy be fired with cause but was overruled by Frank, who required Eustachy to complete six anger management courses by July 1, 2014. In August 2014, Frank fired Graham. CSU has not responded to multiple inquiries about whether Eustachy completed those anger

management courses.

A CSU spokesman said Tuesday the university stands by its decision to establish a zero-tolerance policy and have Eustachy undergo “additional training and education.”

McDonald told The Denver Post he met with Parker in February 2017 to inform him that Eustachy continued to be abusive toward his players.

“What happened in 2014 was, Eustachy stopped attacking players directly. Instead of calling them (expletives) to their face in the locker room at halftime, he would take an assistant to the side and yell at him about the player being an (expletive) loud enough for the player to hear it,” McDonald said. “But in the following seasons, Eustachy again started attacking players.

“I remember one time during practice in 2016, I was evaluating an injured player on the side of the court and for five straight minutes Eustachy walked up and down the floor yelling that this player was an (expletive). The player looked at me with tears in his eyes and asked why Coach had to be like that.”

Parker could not immediately be reached for comment.

McDonald also said that he and other athletic department staffers who worked directly with the men’s basketball team weren’t informed of the zero-tolerance policy Eustachy was given in 2014 and he wasn’t aware the coach was supposed to have heightened surveillance or that staffers was supposed to report Eustachy’s behavior. McDonald was interviewed by Graham in the 2014 investigation and raised his concerns about Eustachy’s behavior then.

Parker acknowledged last week that he is assessing the “climate” of the men’s basketball program. After a report by The Post was published saying Eustachy told his team that Frank informed him his job is safe — and Frank’s office denying that was true — Eustachy was placed on administrative leave Saturday afternoon. Steve Barnes, a longtime assistant of Eustachy’s, was named the interim head coach. He has been described by multiple team sources, past and present, as an enabler of Eustachy’s.

According to a 2003 report by The New York Times, Barnes was suspended a day after he was named the interim coach at Iowa State that year following Eustachy’s termination. Photos of Eustachy partying with and kissing female college students were published in The Des Moines Register, and Barnes reportedly made phone calls to family members of a player requesting their support of Eustachy.

McDonald said assistant coaches at CSU would occasionally speak out against Eustachy for verbally attacking players but that Barnes always remained silent.