G Fiume/Maryland Terrapins/Getty Images
Former Texas Tech women’s basketball head coach Marlene Stollings has reached a settlement with the school following a discrimination and retaliation lawsuit.
Per USA Today‘s Josh Peters, the settlement came after Stollings and the university filed a joint motion to settle on Wednesday and a judge dismissed the case on Thursday.
Stollings filed a lawsuit against the school and athletic director Kirby Hocutt in October 2020, two months after she was fired by the program. She said the firing was due to “discriminatory biases against female coaches” and also accused the school of fraudulent inducement, fraud, breach of contract and defamation.
Texas Tech announced Stollings’ firing on Aug. 6, 2020, one day after USA Today‘s Jori Epstein and Daniel Libit published a report with allegations of abuse and a toxic culture during her two seasons with the program.
In the report, multiple Red Raiders players said Stollings and the coaching staff would call players “disgusting,” “trash,” “fat pig,” “grossly out of shape” and “grossly disproportional.”
Three international players told Epstein and Libit they were targeted by coaches and ridiculed over their English language skills.
One of the players, Marcella Lamark, who is from Brazil, said Stollings called her “dangerous” to teammates and gave her instructions to eat and train in isolation.
According to Peter, Stollings argued in her lawsuit against the school that “two internal reviews conducted by the school before the investigation was published cleared her of the allegations.”
Peter noted Stollings was under contract through March 2024 at the time of her dismissal.
Stollings was hired by Texas Tech on April 9, 2018. She took the job after resigning from the University of Minnesota, where she spent four seasons as head coach.
The 47-year-old Stollings went 32-28 overall at Texas Tech (11-25 in the Big 12). She didn’t make the NCAA tournament with the Red Raiders. She has a 164-117 career record in 10 seasons as a head coach with four different programs.
Krista Gerlich replaced Stollings as head coach at Texas Tech. She is 21-34 overall in two seasons with the program.
