Texas Tech fired its volleyball coach after he threw a ball at a player. He says there's more to it
Texas Tech fired its volleyball coach after he threw a ball at a player. He says there's more to it
Nathan Giese and Josh Peter, USA TODAYFri, October 9, 2026 at 7:00 PM UTC
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Weeks after Texas Tech fired volleyball coach Tony Graystone, questions remain about how his 10-year tenure with the Red Raiders came to such an abrupt end.
Texas Tech announced Graystone’s termination Sept. 13. Already in the final year of his contract, Graystone told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and USA TODAY Sports he and his wife had been preparing for the possibility their time in Lubbock was nearing its conclusion. What he didn't anticipate was how it would end.
At the center of Graystone's firing is an Aug. 10 practice during which he threw a volleyball at a player. Athletic director Kirby Hocutt learned of the incident and other allegations against Graystone through a Sept. 7 email that was later obtained by The Daily Toreador, Texas Tech's student newspaper.
During a Sept. 13 meeting, Hocutt showed Graystone video of the practice incident. Graystone did not deny what happened. The video captured the moment, and minutes later, Graystone was fired.
"Based on the information that was brought to me," Hocutt told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, "I made the only decision I felt that could be made at the time."
Graystone, however, contends the short video clip did not capture the full context of the incident. He also categorically denies other allegations of misconduct that preceded his firing.
What cost Tony Graystone his job as Texas Tech volleyball coach?
When Texas Tech first announced Graystone’s dismissal, the natural assumption was that the decision stemmed from the program’s on-court struggles.
Graystone led the Red Raiders to the NCAA tournament in 2021, their first appearance in 20 years, and earned a contract extension through the 2026 season. Since then, however, the program had fallen toward the bottom of the Big 12.
Graystone said a lack of financial resources contributed to the decline, as much of his roster departed after each season in search of greater name-image-likeness (NIL) opportunities. Texas Tech was 6-2 when he was fired, but the Red Raiders had not posted a winning season since 2022 and were just 18-53 in conference play over that span.
One parent of a Red Raiders volleyball player, who requested anonymity to speak freely without fear of potential retaliation, said they could have understood if Texas Tech had fired Graystone based solely on the program’s results. What they could not accept was seeing his character called into question.
"It just crushes me," the parent said, "to see them attack his character."
Graystone, meanwhile, is open about what happened during the Aug. 10 practice. He said the team was going through a competitive, high-energy drill in which coaches spiked balls at players.
After one player took her turn, Graystone said she made a comment while walking away.
"In my mind," Graystone said, "it was her kind of egging me on."
The USA TODAY Network has requested video of the incident under a open records request, but had not received it from Texas Tech at the time of publication. It is not naming the player involved in the allegations against Graystone because it has not been able to reach her to verify her account.
USA TODAY Network reporters reached out to parents of more than a dozen members of the team, including those of the player at the center of the allegations. Two agreed to speak on the record about what they've heard from their daughters.
Tommy Fausett, the father of Texas Tech freshman Ally Fausett, said he watched a video of the incident on his phone.
"When I first saw it, I was like, 'Oh, dang, that's kind of brutal,' you know?" he told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.
At the time of the incident, Tommy Fausett said, there were two Texas Tech players at the net when Graystone redirected the ball their way.
"I don't know for sure if (Graystone) just slapped it with his hand real hard or if he grabbed it and actually threw it," Tommy Fausett said. "He somehow got possession of the ball and launched it back towards the girl that was supposedly blocking.
"There were two of them there and it hit one of them in the back of the head. She didn't go down or grab her head like in pain or anything like that…"
The other parent, who requested anonymity out of concerns over potential retaliation, said the throw didn't look as aggressive to them.
"It was hard enough to not look good," the parent said. "It wasn't hard enough to do any damage."
Fausett and the other parent also differ on where the ball hit the player, one saying in the head, another claiming in the upper back area. Graystone said it hit her in the back.
Don Sigman said he hasn’t seen the video himself, but added his daughter, Gretchen, said teammates didn't have a strong reaction to the throw.
"She did say he threw the ball at her," Sigman said, "but both parties were kind of joking and laughing at the time."
While Hocutt had video of the incident, Graystone said another video from that practice, one that would show him apologizing to the player afterward, was not included.
"And her first reaction was, 'What are you talking about?" Graystone said. "She hadn't, didn't even remember it, and I reminded her what happened. And she was, 'Oh, yeah. That? Don't worry about it.' And we didn’t. We forgot about it. It was never brought up again. … until Sept. 13."
The week leading up to Tony Graystone's firing
Another allegation surfaced in the days between Hocutt learning of the initial complaint and Graystone's dismissal.
People familiar with the situation who agreed to speak with USA TODAY Sports characterized it as a misunderstanding, saying comments Graystone made before Texas Tech’s match against Prairie View A&M were interpreted as being about race when that was not his intent. The people were granted anonymity due to their concerns of potential retaliation.
Texas Tech was hosting the Red Raider Classic from Sept. 10-11, with two matches scheduled on the opening day: against University of Texas Rio Grande Valley at 11 a.m. and Prairie View A&M at approximately 7:30 p.m.
After the UTRGV match, Graystone said he decided to change the starting lineup for the second match, the first time that season Texas Tech had played twice in one day. He approached four players, two Black and two white, and told them they would start that night.
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Later, in the locker room, Graystone informed the rest of the team of the changes while trying, he said, to encourage the new starters. Because Prairie View A&M is an HBCU and two Black players were being inserted into Texas Tech’s lineup, Graystone said his comments were interpreted differently than he intended.
"I did interject in the locker room, and I called their names, and said, 'Hey, this is your match. You're starting,'" he said.
“It’s so outrageous to think that is what a player heard when I know exactly what was said,” Graystone said, “and what wasn't said. Real serious pushback about that.”
USA TODAY Sports attempted to contact the parents of Black players on Texas Tech’s roster. Two did not respond to requests for comment, while another declined to discuss the matter “out of an abundance of caution.”
Hocutt learned of the allegation involving Graystone’s comments later that week while traveling to Corvallis for Texas Tech's football game at Oregon State. After receiving additional information, Hocutt returned to Lubbock on the morning of Sept. 13 and discussed the allegation with Graystone.
"So I talked to Tony about the (Prairie View) allegation," Hocutt said, "but at the same time, we had arrived at the decision that we were going to part ways."
Two days after Hocutt’s Sept. 9 meeting with the accusing party from the practice incident, Graystone said he and the player had another lengthy conversation inside United Supermarkets Arena. The roughly 15-minute discussion centered on a familiar subject: playing time.
The player had seen limited action during her time at Texas Tech, Graystone said, and the two had discussed the issue repeatedly, including during the four weeks between the Aug. 10 incident and his dismissal.
On Sept. 13, the day after the Red Raider Classic concluded, Hocutt asked to meet with Graystone. At approximately 3 p.m., Graystone said, Hocutt showed him video of the Aug. 10 incident.
"It was, hey, what are we supposed to do about this?" Graystone said of the meeting with Hocutt. "And I agreed with him. I said, yeah, that doesn’t look great."
Graystone said Hocutt also asked whether there was a specific reason the player wasn’t receiving more playing time. The question struck Graystone as unusual because, he said, Hocutt was not an athletic director who typically questioned coaches about lineup or playing-time decisions.
Hocutt disputes that account. He said playing time was not discussed during either his Sept. 9 meeting or his Sept. 13 meeting with Graystone.
Graystone said Hocutt did not raise a separate allegation of "medical malpractice" referenced in the email to the AD during their meeting. Graystone said he was unaware of that allegation until the email containing it later became public. Instead, the Sept. 13 conversation focused primarily on the video and the Aug. 10 incident.
After the discussion, Graystone said Hocutt left the room to confer with another Texas Tech athletic administrator. When he returned, Hocutt informed Graystone that he was being dismissed, effective immediately.
Fallout from Tony Graystone's Texas Tech firing
Outside the Texas Tech volleyball program, Graystone’s dismissal may have generated little surprise. Inside the locker room, however, his former players wanted answers. According to players and parents, they received little explanation from Hocutt.
"It just leaves a lot open to interpretation," Sigman said, "and drawing conclusions on information you just don't have."
One parent said their daughter recalled Hocutt telling the team, "This is just if it got out to the press. We don’t want the problems."
Hocutt offered a different recollection of his message.
"I think my comment may have been around, you know, if what has been brought to me were made public, it's not defensible," Hocutt explained.
Graystone and parents who spoke with USA TODAY Sports said other Texas Tech coaches and players were not interviewed about the Aug. 10 incident. They said there was no formal investigation beyond Hocutt reviewing the video and Graystone acknowledging he threw the ball. Before dismissing Graystone, Hocutt said he discussed the situation with Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec.
Graystone said he was unaware of the totality of the allegations from the email sent to Hocutt until they became public. Parents who spoke with USA TODAY Sports said those allegations of "medical malpractice" and "felony battery" came as a shock.
"This was not battery," one parent who saw the video said. "This was not. This was hard coaching, perhaps. Will Tony tell you he shouldn’t have thrown the ball? Probably, yes."
Graystone does acknowledge that much: He said he should not have thrown the ball at the player. But he maintains there was no malicious intent, describing the incident as horseplay similar to interactions he said he has had with players throughout his coaching career.
Several people interviewed for the story pointed to the player’s limited playing time as a possible source of the tension, though Hocutt has disputed that playing time was part of his conversations surrounding Graystone’s dismissal.
Hocutt said he understands players' frustration over receiving limited information about why their coach was dismissed. But he said his position restricts how much he can disclose and that, based on the information presented to him, he believed there was little choice about how to proceed.
Before these events, Hocutt said, Texas Tech officials had not been made aware of previous allegations of misconduct involving Graystone. He also said the university did not learn about the Aug. 10 throwing incident until it was brought to officials’ attention during the Sept. 9 meeting.
What's next for Tony Graystone, Texas Tech volleyball?
While Graystone’s tenure at Texas Tech has ended, he intends to continue his coaching career. Part of moving forward, he said, means trying to clear his name.
Graystone still looks back fondly on his time leading the Red Raiders, though he wishes the program had more resources to navigate the changing landscape of college athletics.
"If you look at what we went through the last few years," Graystone said, "we were just losing our best players every year. We just couldn't keep them. We just didn’t have the resources, and so that was a struggle. It just seemed like we were consistently having to restart year after year, and that's tough.
"But saying all that, this team was going to flip it around. We figured we had found a way to put some more resources into the team."
Now, Texas Tech faces a restart with a new head coach. Hocutt said the athletic department has not yet begun its search for Graystone's successor and plans to take time to evaluate the program and its future.
"Coach Graystone had told me all summer that you're going to be pleased with this team, this is a competitive team you're going to enjoy to watch," Hocutt said. "As I’ve gotten to know, meet these young women, I've enjoyed getting to be around them the few times that I have, and somebody can come in here and elevate us to where we've proven we can go in our other sports."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas Tech fired its volleyball coach after he threw a ball at a player. He says there's more to it
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