Colorado State investigation recommended firing Larry Eustachy for player abuse, but he is still there

Larry Eustachy is still the coach of Colorado State’s men’s basketball team, even though an internal investigation recommended his firing in 2013-14 that found he emotionally abused players.

The documents, published by The Coloradoan, contained the following information:

• Eustachy acknowledged calling players “f*cking c*nts” and telling assistant coaches to “shut the f*ck up.”
• Five players said they were emotionally abused by Eustachy, but were not identified because they feared retaliation.
• A mental health worker at the university said, “If you dropped a camera inside the basketball program at CSU, you’d see Rutgers,” referring to the documented abuse of former Rutgers coach Mike Rice.
• A former player said, “If we recorded audio, Eustachy would have been fired a long time ago.”

Former athletic director Jack Graham led the investigation and told The Coloradoan that he believed Eustachy should have been fired, but the university president did not think the school had cause to do so.

Eustachy, for his part, is upset people found out.

“I am deeply disappointed on a very personal level that someone chose to publicize confidential information from my personnel file,” Eustachy said in a statement released by the university. “That said, I fully recognize that I’m not perfect. I have my faults and strive every day to be better than I was yesterday.”

Player abuse has become a hot issue in the era of athletes’ rights. Illinois football coach Tim Beckman was fired in 2015 for abusing players, as were George Washington men’s basketball coach Mike Lonergan and Loyola women’s basketball coach Sheryl Swoopes in 2016.

The NCAA pretends that college sports are an amateur activity, but it’s a high-stakes business that can at times cause coaches to go way too far.

This isn’t the first time Eustachy has been in hot water. He was fired by Iowa State in 2003 after pictures surfaced of him kissing students at a college party at Missouri after his team played there.

[Coloradoan]