Stollings in some hot water at Texas Tech

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Was never sold on her x's and o's to begin with (especially on defense, where he approach was like having hot pokers jammed into your eyes). Add in all the rest of this crap and it's a wonder she ever got the jobs she did.
 

Ignatius L Hoops said:
If I recall, Teague took the Minnesota job before Stollings was hired at VCU. I believe Stollings was hired at VCU by Mike Ellis. Shortly after, Ellis followed Teague to Minnesota.

I can remember Stollings crediting Ellis with hiring her at both VCU and Minnesota. Of course, since Ellis also left Minnesota while under investigation it's a distinction with nary a difference.
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A little more history.....

Teague left VCU in April, 2012 and started at the U in June, 2012. Marlene was hired at VCU in June, 2012. Here's a tibit from that time from the Richmond newspaper:

Stollings appears to have friends in high places at Minnesota. Gophers athletic director Norwood Teague and senior associate athletics director Mike Ellis occupied similar positions at VCU until leaving for Minnesota following the 2012 basketball season.

Stollings also is a former participant in Ellis’ Villa 7 Consortium, a program created to introduce athletics directors to promising assistant coaches.

Based on informed sources, the two guys never had anyone but Marlene in mind for the Gopher job.

And, ironically, David Benedict was the interim AD at VCU when she was hired there. Shortly after Teague started here, Benedict was hired here. Benedict appears to be one of the handful of Teague hires who has not been tainted. He stayed here for two years and then was at Auburn for two years. He became AD at U Conn in 2016. He hired Beth Goetz from the U when she went to U Conn. And, Benedict is still AD there, and recently cancelled their 2020 football season.

At the end of the day, good that Texas Tech did the right thing. Hard to see how Dawkins keeps her job there in the long term.
 

fanfromthevalley said:
A little more history.....

Teague left VCU in April, 2012 and started at the U in June, 2012. Marlene was hired at VCU in June, 2012. Here's a tibit from that time from the Richmond newspaper:

Stollings appears to have friends in high places at Minnesota. Gophers athletic director Norwood Teague and senior associate athletics director Mike Ellis occupied similar positions at VCU until leaving for Minnesota following the 2012 basketball season.
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Thanks for a the additional history. I suppose we could complete the circle by adding that Goetz is now AD at my other Alma Mater, Ball State, from whence, once upon a time, Minnesota rescued Brenda Frese.
 


Yes, TT did the right thing, although I'm sure swallowing that large contract has to be difficult. Maybe they'll end up litigating that if there were any clauses in the contract that might put her remaining contract in question. What this came down to for me was the lack of basic human decency and respect for the players on the part of Stollings and her staff. This kind of culture should never be tolerated. I wonder how many other college programs have this type of stuff going on. I'm guessing that the dominoes fell quickly on this one when it got national publicity. Even if the athletic director knew what was going on, he had no choice but to dismiss here after the USA Today report came out.
 

www.usatoday.com

Texas Tech fires assistant women's basketball coach Nikita Lowry Dawkins

Texas Tech assistant women's basketball coach Nikita Lowry Dawkins was fired Friday, a day after head coach Marlene Stollings was terminated.
www.usatoday.com

Dawkins is out; Petrella denies misconduct:


Texas Tech has fired assistant women’s basketball coach Nikita Lowry Dawkins, a school spokesperson confirmed to USA TODAY Sports on Friday morning.

The termination follows a USA TODAY investigation into what 10 players allege was an abusive culture under head coach Marlene Stollings, Lowry Dawkins and strength and conditioning coach Ralph Petrella.

Athletic director Kirby Hocutt met with Lowry Dawkins Friday morning before terminating her, effective immediately, the spokesperson said. Hocutt fired Stollings on Thursday night. Petrella, who denies any misconduct, resigned voluntarily in March after the conclusion of the season
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Happy to hear that she is out of here long before all this came to fruition. We don't need that kind of stuff around here.
 



So sad to see that this sort crap was going on but at least Tech terminated these people. But also glad that this didn't explode here in Minnesota. Huge luck out for us that Tech hired her away.
 

Just a guess but I think we will see a lot more info on Stollings, Dawkins, and Petrella's time here at U of M. In light of the Annalese Lamke tweet and the response her teammates gave it I cant see the local press letting this rest. There is a story here somewhere and they will BURY these people even deeper than they are now. With the possibility of sexual abuse by Petrella occurring here, and abuse by the coaches, this will be looked into big time.
 

www.kcbd.com

Hocutt describes troubled Lady Raider basketball program, apologizes to players

In his Friday news conference, Hocutt painted a picture of a troubled program that had received multiple complaints through Stollings’ first and second season, prompting him to conduct an investigation.
www.kcbd.com www.kcbd.com

Of Note from the Kirby Hocutt presser:

Hocutt said Stollings was terminated for objectionable behavior and will not be paid anything more on her contract, which was set to expire in 2024
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And:

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - Texas Tech Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt held a news conference to discuss the termination of Lady Raiders Head Coach Marlene Stollings and other members of the coaching staff on Friday.

Hocutt painted a picture of a troubled program that had received multiple complaints through Stollings’ first and second season, prompting him to conduct an investigation.

He said Texas Tech administrators had tried several times to address complaints from within the program, and each time he thought things had improved.

Hocutt began his news conference with an apology to members of the team: “We have failed them and we have to do better. These should be the best years of their lives. We should be mentoring them for life and to learn lessons they will be carrying with them forever. That’s not been their experience, and for that, I apologize. We’re gonna get this right,” Hocutt said.

Hocutt said the most serious complaint, the Title IX complaint of sexual harassment against strength and conditioning coach Ralph Petrella, was dealt with quickly. He said he learned of the complaint on March 25 and the coach was no longer in his position by March 27.
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goldengophers said:
Heart rate monitoring is about maximizing efficiency of effort, it's beyond preposterous and cruel how Stollings was ulitilizing the tool.
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I heard from a Gopher women's recruit, that they used the heart rate monitoring to see how long it takes to recover after being tired. Some players only took 30 seconds to recover and other players took 60 seconds or longer to recover. It helped the coaches decide how to manage the time outs, etc to maximize the players efficiency. But Stallings seems to have taken it to a cruel level.
 



Kinda hard to jibe "We've known about this for two seasons" and "We didn't do anything until a national newspaper wrote about it."
 

Two additional items from the Hocutt presser:

Hocutt met with Stollings at 6:30 p.m. Thursday to notify her of termination, a decision he said she “obviously did not agree with the reasoning behind.”
[...]
Hocutt said Friday that when hiring Stollings, Dawkins and Petrella in 2018 — a search which the school conducted internally — he spoke to head coaches and assistant coaches around the country as part of the vetting process.

“Had we heard directly any of the concerns we are now very well aware of, we would have made a different decision,” Hocutt said. “There were no flags that were presented to us at the time we hired coach Stollings.”
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Could she possibly sue since I thought I read she wasn’t getting a buyout?
 

You'd think TT has a clause somewhere in the language of the contract..
 

I'm guessing that Stollings will try to get some kind of settlement out of TT. The result of that may well be decided on the way the contract is written and the interpretation of the language. USA Today had a followup op-ed today which espoused that the TT AD should also be fired. I'm thinking that it still possible. If he knew most of this stuff and just gave a hand-slap to Stollings and staff, that certainly wasn't enough. My question is would Stollings have been dismissed if this article hadn't come out? I don't think so, and that's a shame. I'm sure that Coyle is thanking his lucky stars that he's not embroiled in that mess.
 

www.usatoday.com

Texas Tech fires coach Marlene Stollings amid abuse claims within women's basketball team

Coach Marlene Stollings was fired by Texas Tech on Thursday after players detailed abuse allegations in USA TODAY Sports.
www.usatoday.com

Here's the contract note from USA Today. I doubt Stollings will shuffle off quietly.

Stollings, whose contract with Texas Tech ran through March 2024, was due to be paid $740,000 for her 2020-21 contract year, according to copies of the agreement obtained by USA TODAY Sports and the Intercollegiate. If she is being fired for cause, the school's "sole obligation" is to pay her basic annual compensation through the termination date. So, such a termination would cost Stollings roughly $2.8 million. Termination without cause would entitle Stollings to 75% of her remaining basic annual compensation, a total surpassing $2 million.
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EaganGopher22 said:
Sheds a lot of light on why all of the posts she recruited were so thin.
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It seems to me that Marlene is just a bit dumb about physics (and perhaps a few other things). She probably couldn't get it through her head that although svelte players like Taiye and Kehinde might be able to play 38 minutes and keep running like the Energizer Bunny the whole time, for someone with a more muscular body style like Annalese, that was just not possible. But perhaps she continued to push the more muscular centers to try to get them to do the impossible.

For a bigger player, going at 90% heart rate for any length of time greater than 5 minutes is just begging for a heart attack. Thank goodness we never had to use the defibrillator during her tenure at the U.
 

www.startribune.com

Now we see why Marlene Stollings had detractors when with the Gophers

www.startribune.com www.startribune.com

Reusse recounts a Minneapolis Final Four column when he met Texas Tech WBB player, Mia Castaneda.

There were four younger [Texas Tech Fans] having a lunch at the Loon. Mia Castaneda, a Tech junior, was the lone woman — making the 1,135-mile drive from Lubbock with two cousins and a friend.

Castaneda was a backup guard on the women’s team. I asked how the season had gone with coach Marlene Stollings, in her first Tech year after being hired from Minnesota.

The Castaneda quote appearing in the Star Tribune was: “I’ll be transferring. I’m one of seven transferring.”

There were harsher off-the-record comments, but publicly blasting a coach wasn’t going to help Castaneda find a place to play. She wound up at Washburn, a Division II school in Kansas.

Not a loss of a great player for Stollings, obviously, but a hometown kid feeling mistreated emotionally and transferring — just another indicator as to how so many behind-the-scenes detractors emerged in her four Gophers seasons.
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www.usatoday.com

Former Texas Tech captain on abuse claims in women's basketball: 'We were terrified of retaliation'

Former Texas Tech women’s basketball player Brittany Brewer wrote a letter after players alleged abuse by coaches. "Everything you read was true."
www.usatoday.com

Brittany Brewer's letter:

Editor's note: Former Texas Tech women’s basketball player Brittany Brewer, now with the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA, penned this letter to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal to address recent player allegations of abuse by coaches within the program. These are the first public comments Brewer has made on the subject.
[...]

For most of us, including me, it was hard to relive our experience. Just waking up that day and reading what my teammates went through in writing was a battle in itself, and I already knew all that was shared.

I lived through it with them.

For those of you asking why this just came to light, or why you had no idea, I want you to know it is not your fault. It was not public knowledge. We were terrified of retaliation.

We did not trust a lot of people.

As the team captain, I had no idea how to handle what was happening. My teammates were barely making it, and I was just trying to find some silver lining in order to show up at practice the next day and play the game that I love. I was trying so hard to be the leader my coaches wanted me to be, which I knew was not right and was not who I am. I was walking on eggshells trying to please them, while trying to support my teammates, but also while trying to muster up my own strength not to quit.
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And Raoul is reporting that top two returning scorers are now in the portal

 

www.everythinglubbock.com

Krista Gerlich named Lady Raider head coach

LUBBOCK, Texas — Texas Tech named Krista Gerlich head coach of the Lady Raider basketball team Tuesday. Video: ‘There is nobody better,’ moment Krista Gerlich introduced as Lady Raider head c…
www.everythinglubbock.com www.everythinglubbock.com

Krista Gerlich named to replace Marlene Stollings.

“I am excited to announce Krista Gerlich as our next Lady Raider basketball coach,” Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt said. “Coach Gerlich has been outstanding as a head coach at both UT-Arlington and West Texas A&M, and her track record as a student-athlete at Texas Tech speaks for itself. I believe that she is the right person to lead our women’s basketball team and I am excited to see what she and the Lady Raiders accomplish in the seasons ahead.”


She graduated from Texas Tech in 1993 with a degree in exercise and sports science.

“I can’t put into words how excited I am to be entrusted with rebuilding the Lady Raider basketball program, which is near and dear to my heart,” Gerlich said. “I can’t wait to get to work on taking this program back to where it’s supposed to be, where it has been and where everyone in the Texas Tech community expects it to be. I’m looking forward to meeting the current Lady Raiders, embracing them and their journey, and helping them write a better ending to their careers at Texas Tech, because they deserve it.

Gerlich spent time as a high school basketball coach before serving as an assistant to Hall of Fame Lady Raider coach Marsha Sharp.

A Texas Tech spokesperson said as part of the interview process Gerlich proactively raised a 2015 public intoxication charge for which she served a two-game suspension.

We asked Texas Tech Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt about the incident and he said, “I spoke with her athletic director about the incident and am satisfied she learned her lesson and has continued to grow as a coach, role model and mentor to her student athletes.”

“I was forthright about the incident throughout the interview process,” Gerlich said. “I’ve shared it with my team as an example of a growing experience to acknowledge that we aren’t all perfect and that everyone makes mistakes.”

Over her 14 years at West Texas A&M and UT Arlington, Gerlich was named TABC Coach of the Year twice, and won three conference titles and five NCAA Tournament games.
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Ex-women's basketball coach Marlene Stollings preparing to sue Texas Tech over firing

www.espn.com

Ex-coach Stollings preparing to sue Texas Tech

Marlene Stollings has retained attorney Peter Ginsberg to pursue a lawsuit against Texas Tech over her firing. She told ESPN that she wants to coach again and wants to clear her reputation.
www.espn.com www.espn.com
 

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