Texas Tech Coach Mark Adams Resigns Following Racially Insensitive Comments

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Texas Tech coach Mark Adams, who had been suspended just lately for racially insensitive feedback made towards certainly one of his gamers, resigned shortly after the Pink Raiders had been eradicated from the Massive 12 Event on Wednesday evening.

Second-year assistant Corey Williams had led the Pink Raiders in their 78-62 loss to West Virginia.

The incident involving Adams occurred in a gathering with a participant, who wasn’t recognized, Texas Tech mentioned Sunday in saying his suspension.

The college mentioned Adams “was encouraging the student-athlete to be extra receptive to teaching and referenced Bible verses about staff, lecturers, mother and father, and slaves serving their masters.”

Texas Tech coach Mark Adams, who had been suspended recently for racially insensitive comments made toward one of his players, has resigned.
Texas Tech coach Mark Adams, who had been suspended just lately for racially insensitive feedback made towards certainly one of his gamers, has resigned.
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Pink Raiders athletic director Kirby Hocutt discovered of the incident final Friday and issued a written reprimand, and Adams coached them in a daily season-ending loss to Oklahoma State the subsequent day. However after Hocutt investigated the scenario additional, he determined to droop Adams simply three days earlier than the beginning of the Massive 12 Event.

In its launch Wednesday about Adams stepping down, the college mentioned Hocutt decided after the inquiry that the racially insensitive remark was unintentional and an remoted incident.

Adams waited till his group was eradicated earlier than saying that he was stepping down.

“My lifelong objective was to assist and be a constructive affect on my gamers, and to be part of the Texas Tech males’s basketball group,” Adams mentioned in a press release. “Nonetheless, each the college and I consider this incident has grow to be a distraction for the Texas Tech males’s basketball group and the college, which I care about so deeply.”

This isn’t the primary time that high-profile coaches have been in bother for insensitive feedback.

Three years in the past, Pat Chambers resigned at Penn State after certainly one of his former gamers revealed the coach mentioned he needed to “loosen the noose that’s round your neck” when speaking to the participant about serving to him cut back stress; he wsa employed at Florida Gulf Coast this season. And throughout the 2020-21 season, Creighton coach Greg McDermott apologized for telling his group after a loss to “keep on the plantation” as a strategy to reminding them to stay collectively; he was suspended for one sport.

The 66-year-old Adams graduated from Texas Tech in 1979 and had been on the workers there since 2016, starting as director of basketball operations beneath Tubby Smith after which spending time on Chris Beard’s workers. He was elevated to go coach when Beard departed for Texas, and signed a $15.5 million, five-year contract extension final spring.

The extension got here after Adams led the Pink Raiders to the finals of the Massive 12 Event, the place they misplaced to eventual nationwide champion Kansas. They went to the Candy 16 of the NCAA Event in his first season in cost.

Issues soured shortly this season, although. Texas Tech misplaced its first eight convention video games, and any hope of creating a run to the Massive 12 Event title and a return to the NCAA tourney ended with a dismal effort in opposition to the Mountaineers.

“If I’m being sincere, it’s a number of weight on these youngsters proper now. They’ve been by means of quite a bit within the final week or so,” Williams mentioned afterward. “And in some methods, I simply really feel prefer it caught up with them, and so they needed to win.

“They gave their finest. And as soon as the ball stopped falling in a little bit bit, it bought a little bit bit extra more durable,” he added. “The hill grew to become quite a bit steeper, and unlucky we weren’t in a position to make up the distinction.”

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