Coach Bev Kearney on administrative leave while they investigate "issues with the program"

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/longhorns/entries/2012/11/12/kearney_placed.html/

And this from the AP wire service:

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas placed veteran women’s track and field coach Beverly Kearney on paid leave Monday pending a review of unspecified “issues” in the program.

Texas did not provide additional information and Kearney did not respond to a request for comment. She has been head coach at Texas since 1993.
Kearney, 54, is one of the nation’s most successful coaches in women’s track and field with seven national championships, six while coaching Texas and one at Florida. Her teams have also won 23 league titles. She also won seven NCAA Coach of the Year titles. Texas finished fourth in the 2012 NCAA Indoor Championships.
Kearney also organizes an annual Minority Mentorship Symposium in Austin, which introduces minority student athletes to minority executives to help them get career advice. The symposium is sponsored by her Pursuit of Dreams Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to “equip and educate individuals with the practical knowledge and insight they need to align their pursuits with their passions.”

In 2002, Kearney suffered spinal injuries in a Florida car accident that killed two other women.

Take away all those National Championships!!!

If it's recruiting violations, it would be about the dumbest thing ever. t.u. track coaches don't even have to leave campus to recruit the best athletes in the state. They all come to them at the state meet, and a bunch of them come for the Texas Relays.

She's been known for her short temper, wouldn't surprise me to see allegations of verbal abuse and the like.

Completely speculating.

Interesting update on this.

http://www.statesman.com/ap/ap/education/texas-sought-pay-raise-before-suspending-coach/nTKG2/

She is already paid $275K per year and they wanted to raise her pay to $397K next year.

Another example, it seems, of Texas' willingness to overpay their coaches in spite of mediocrity. I know Kearney has had great success over the years, but not recently. So why give her a $120K raise? Plonsky has no business sense at all.

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Another example, it seems, of Texas' willingness to overpay their coaches in spite of mediocrity. I know Kearney has had great success over the years, but not recently. So why give her a $120K raise? Plonsky has no business sense at all.

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They are probably trying to keep her from considering retiring anytime soon. She's got to be close to 60 years old now.

11th and 8th last two outdoor seasons, 4th and 2nd the last two indoor seasons. She's not completely lost her hold of things.

[This message has been edited by TXAggie2011 (edited 12/6/2012 9:58a).]

Plonsky is almost as stupid as D. Dodds. Look at the amount of money they give to these average coaches. Plonsky knows nothing about most of the sports at the school and only hires women which precludes her from hiring some of the best coaches......idiot!

TXaggie11 - so if Bev Kearney wouldn't stay for $270K per year, let her go.

Get a new coach. At some point this is about managing the business of athletics. You should give your employees raises when they deserve them.

I think there is something more suspicious at work here. Some kind of quid pro quo?

Eddie Reese is worth more than Kearney. Has been there longer, is still at/near the top of his game, and has won an NC recently.

I don't know what's going on, but there's nothing new about money whipping a successful, but aging, coach, into sticking around for a few more years. It happens all over the place, I've even seen it happen at the high school level. Money whipping a coach, younger or older, certainly isn't a new thing for Plonsky.

In this case, you don't just have an aging, successful coach. You have an successful, female, African American, suffered severe injuries, some permanent, in a car crash and kept coaching, but aging, coach. The gal just got an award on CNN- she's valuable.

Its probably not smart business- however, an AD isn't a regular 'ol business and I bet they're not pressed for money- and yeah, its quite possible there's something more to it.

[This message has been edited by TXAggie2011 (edited 12/7/2012 12:28a).]

TxAggie2011 - I think you nailed it. But it ain't good business. Plonsky is a borderline nutcase the way she manages her programs. And Texas seems to truly think it is important to have highly paid coaches (as per the article where Plonsky said the raise would put Kearney in the top 3).

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 12/7/2012 9:03a).]

We have the answer.

http://www.statesman.com/news/sports/college/texas-kearney-to-step-down/nTnq5/

Weird that this all comes out ten years after it all happened.

Official statement from the Athletic Administration: http://www.flotrack.org/article/16819-Texas-Coach-Bev-Kearney-announces-her-resignation-as-head-coach-of-Womens-Track

Weird story all around but I find the part about selling her house and liquidating assets particularly curious.

I'm assuming her daughter is a teenager/soon to be teenager and that's not a cheap period for a parent, but as a major college head coach of 25 years, I would expect one to be in a financial situation they wouldn't have to go to those lengths to "put food on the table."

Has Kearney been wrapped up in some bad or wasteful investments? Is that related to her sudden pay raise? Or perhaps she splurged recently, maybe after the pay raise and this is just bad timing?

And yes, its weird that they'd report this to the university 10 years later.

Shady story all around.

It is a very weird story. I too do not understand the selling house part. I live in Austin. I don't make as much as Kerney. I have three kids. Two still in college. What has she been doing with her money?

The black helicopter side of me thinks that this incident and the sudden gigantic pay raise are linked. Plonsky was trying to help, in a corrupt way that only tu can - with money. But it all unraveled and tu closed ranks to save itself.

Reading between the lines it sounds like there is a threat of a lawsuit behind the scenes. Otherwise I'm not sure why something like this comes up 10 or 11 years later.
I met Coach Kearney not too long before her suspension and she seemed to emphasize making good choices to her team. The whole thing kind of suprises me, but it is very possible that her accident refocused her from her own bad choices. Unfortunately repentance and forgiveness don't always take care of the consequences. She has overcome a lot in her life so I believe her and her family will make it through.
There are no winners in this situation and I encourage fellow Ags to show some class in any comments on the situation. Don't let some insensitive remarks reflect negatively on the Aggie Track program.

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I suffered thru Tom Wilson and I don't ever want to go back there.

She may be fine person. And I really don't care about her personal life. She needs to keep that separate of course from her coaching of 18-22 year old college kids.

I am more interested in UT's handling of this. I said early on this salary adjustment was outrageous and just another example of UT's poor management of its coaches and compensation. Now I wonder if these two events are somehow linked.

I don't know a whole lot about how salary figures for coaches work, but Kearney did do a lot for the university and the community. Just the university alone & the ones that I can remember on top of my head are Marathon Kids & Minority Mentorship Symposium. I heard she has organized a few more events like this. I actually don't know many other non-revenue sport coach that reaches out like that.

My gut also says this is a very odd situation but I don't want to speculate.

Most universities pay their non-revenue coaches as little as possible. That doesn't mean the pay is low. Texas however seems to take joy in paying their coaches crazy amounts of money.

What is odd about Kearney's pay is not her "old" salary of $270K or so. That's rich enough. It is the plan to take her to almost $400K in just a few years or so. Many D1 football assistants don't get paid that much.

I don't think Pat Henry, with a ridiculous number of national championships, makes that much.

Agree with Spicewood...and she's a split head coach to boot (women's head coach).

That's silly money. I guess if you have the money, might as well spend it...but...

I suspected it was something like this, but I hesitated to mention it for fear of the abuse I would have suffered for so speculating. I never have heard a reasoned explanation as to why this kind of thing is so prevalent in women's sports.

I'm curious who she rubbed muffs with...