Professor Elam

weekend Jan 7 2023

The contest for dumb___ of the year is already underway  Beard was lured away from Texas Tech and given a five year $35 M contract, and that is for coaching basketball not for curing cancer. One would think he would  mind those Ps and Qs but … yes the contract has the standard morals clause that if ye  engages in unbecoming behavior he can be fired and UT does not have to pay the rest of the contract.  Wow I mean if you are making $7 M a year why are you fighting with your girl friend,or anyone else on the planet?

Here is his record, now with this against him, will another school be desperate enough to hire him?

hUT fires Beard.

The University of Texas at Austin has fired Texas basketball coach Chris Beard weeks after he was charged with a third-degree felony for family violence, university officials said Thursday.

“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’ve been diligently working through.”

Beard was arrested on Dec. 12 for allegedly strangling his fiancee, Randi Trew, after Austin police responded to a 911 call at a Tarrytown home early that morning. He was released that afternoon from Travis County Jail after paying a $10,000 bond. He has a hearing in Travis County District Court on Jan. 18. Prosecutors in the Travis County District Attorney’s office said Thursday they are reviewing the case to see if it will go forward.

Perry Minton, Beard's lawyer, said in a statement published by KXAN that Beard was "crushed" at the news and said the university had "violated their agreement with the coach."

"At the outset of Coach Beard’s suspension, The University promised they would conduct an independent investigation surrounding the allegations and make a decision regarding his employment only after they had done so," Minton said. "They proceeded to terminate Coach Beard without asking a single question of him or his fiancé."

In a letter that UT-Austin's legal team sent to Minton and provided to KXAN, UT-Austin Vice President for Legal Affairs Jim Davis said the university "exercised thoughtful restraint to allow time for additional material facts to emerge," before acting.

Mr. Del Conte supported Mr. Beard and the program by supporting this pause before action and by presuming his innocence while the facts unfolded. But that support was not a determination regarding Mr. Beard's conduct — such a decision would have been premature," Davis wrote. "It is a mistake to view a manager's support for an employee as a statement of belief in criminal guilt or innocence. It is his actual behavior that we consider, not whether some acts also constitute a crime. Whether or not the District Attorney ultimately charges Mr. Beard is not determinative of whether he engaged in conduct unbecoming a head coach at our university."

Beard’s contract contained a standard clause among agreements with UT-Austin that allows the university to suspend or fire him with cause for any behavior that is “unbecoming” or leads to a criminal charge “involving a felony, or any crime involving theft, dishonesty, or moral turpitude,” according to the Austin American-Statesman.