LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Emails sent to Texas Tech Athletics Director Kirby Hocutt, obtained by a KCBD open records request, are providing new details about what led to the termination of Head Volleyball Coach Tony Graystone back on Sept. 13.<\/p>\n
Hocutt received the complaint on Sept. 7, accusing Graystone of physical abuse, medical mistreatment and felony battery of a player on the team, although the name of the player and the name of the reporting party have both been redacted.<\/p>\n
The reporting party asked Hocutt not to talk to the coach before the meeting from \u201cfear of increased retaliation and intimidation from Coach Graystone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hocutt took the meeting on Sept. 9 and Graystone was terminated as of Sept. 13. Texas Tech made the announcement on that day, but provided no additional details.<\/p>\n
The termination letter said, \u201cAs we discussed, as a result of your actions, Texas Tech is exercising its right under Section 5.A. of your Employment Contract to terminate your employment for cause effective immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter specified: \u201cYou will be paid any accrued vacation hours you may have, but all other contractual obligations between Texas Tech and you shall cease immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
Associate Head Coach Alisa Blair is serving as interim head coach for the remainder of the 2026 season. Blair has been with the Red Raiders for four seasons.<\/p>\n
The emails referenced in this story were first obtained and reported by Texas Tech\u2019s student newspaper, The Daily Toreador.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll continue to update this story as we learn more.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Emails sent to Texas Tech Athletics Director Kirby Hocutt, obtained by a KCBD open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169],"class_list":["post-451803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}