Texas fired head basketball coach Chris Beard, the program announced Thursday, nearly a month after he was fired. arrested on third-degree assault charges for allegedly strangling, biting and assaulting his fiancée in his home.
“The University of Texas has parted ways with Chris Beard,” Texas Athletic Director Chris Del Conte said in a statement. “This has been a difficult situation that we have been diligently working through. Today I informed Mr. Beard of our decision to fire him immediately.”
Beard was fired for cause, sources tell CBS Sports. As such, he will not be entitled to any salary or buyout money from the seven-year, $35 million contract he signed with the Longhorns ahead of the 2021-22 season. The deal was set to last until 2028.
A source told CBS Sports that Del Conte was not the one who decided to fire Beard, that decision came from others in power at the university.
Beard’s attorney, Perry Minton, sent a long letter to James Davis, vice president of legal affairs at UT Thursday morning, after learning that UT was moving to fire its client: “Your update to me this morning came as a shock, coming this far in this process and following positive developments that strongly support Coach Beard’s statement that he is innocent of any crime and has not done anything that ‘(a) is unbecoming of a head coach and reflects poorly on the University or (b) resulted in criminal criminal charges.’ He was arrested, so his fiancee withdrew her previously reported statement, and I expect the Travis County District Attorney very soon to dismiss any and all charges in the matter.”
“Chris Beard has engaged in unacceptable behavior that makes him unfit to serve as head coach at our university,” UT said in part in its response to Mr. Minton. “There appears to be an incorrect underlying assumption that the outcome of the criminal prosecution dictates the outcome of Mr. Beard. But these are different processes, where different decision makers are weighing different factors.
“We understand that some, but not all, reports of Mr. Beard’s behavior have been retracted,” the letter continued. “It is his actual behavior that we consider, not whether some acts also constitute a crime.”
Minton later issued a statement saying that Beard is “devastated by the news” that he was fired, and questioned Texas’ motives for firing Beard and the extent of its knowledge of the incident.
“They fired Coach Beard without asking a single question about him or his fiancée,” wrote Minton.
Texas suspended Beard indefinitely without pay on December 12 following the arrest. He was not allowed to join the team since that date.
“The University takes issues of interpersonal violence involving members of its community seriously,” UT said in a Dec. 12 statement.
Randi Trew, Beard’s fiancée, told police on the night of the incident that Beard “choked me, threw me out of bed, bit me, hurt my whole leg, threw me and freaked out” as part of his statement in the arrest report.
Eleven days later, on December 23, Trew recanted his original statement. Through his lawyer, Trew claimed to be the initiator of the “fight”. She said that Beard did not strangle her the night she called 911 in the early hours of December 12 and that she has not told police otherwise, despite what is contained in the arrest report. Trew did not refute that Beard acted in self-defense that night.
Police documented visible injuries and signs of struggle on Trew’s body when they interviewed her on December 12. The arrest report noted that Trew told Austin police, “I couldn’t breathe; he did that for probably 5 seconds.”
In recanting his statement, Trew said, “It was never my intention to arrest or prosecute him.”
As of Thursday, the criminal charge against Beard had not been dropped by the local district attorney’s office in Austin, Texas. Beard’s next court appearance is scheduled for January 18.
A Texas alumnus, Beard was hired with great fanfare in April 2021 after five successful seasons at Texas Tech. No. 6 Texas is 12–2, winning five of six games under interim head coach Rodney Terry since Beard’s suspension. The Longhorns play Oklahoma State on Saturday.
“We thank coach Rodney Terry for his exemplary leadership on and off the court at a time when our team needed it most,” added Del Conte. “We are grateful that he will remain the interim head coach until the end of the season. We are proud of our student-athletes, coaches and staff, who during this difficult time continued to make us proud to be Longhorns.”
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