USA TODAY
A tumultuous one-season tenure as Texas Tech men's basketball coach
ended Thursday when Billy Gillispie submitted his resignation.
Athletics director Kirby Hocutt said Gillispie's letter cited health reasons.
"Billy
has decided to focus on his health, and we wish him a full recovery,"
Hocutt said in a news release on the school's athletics website. "We are
proud of the young men he has brought to this campus. Billy's decision
allows him to concentrate on his well-being and allows us to turn our
attention to preparations for the upcoming season."
The Red
Raiders were 8-23 overall, 1-17 in the Big 12, in Gillispie's lone
season as successor to Pat Knight. The school said Gillispie will be
paid for the rest of his contract, which runs through April 30, 2013.
Gillispie,
52, had been on indefinite medical leave since Sept. 10. He spent parts
of four days last week at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.,
returning to Lubbock, Texas, last Friday. He texted the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that he was seeking treatment for high blood pressure and stress "amongst other things."
Before
Gillispie left for the Mayo Clinic on Sept. 11, Hocutt said he had told
the coach he was not to be involved with the program "in any way" until
they had a face-to-face meeting. It isn't clear if that meeting ever
took place.
Gillispie's tenure in Lubbock began to unravel last
month when CBSSports.com and ESPN.com, citing several former players,
reported the coach regularly violated NCAA practice-time rules and
mistreated players to the point of causing injury.
The school
announced Aug. 31 that it was looking into the alleged mistreatment.
Earlier that day and hours before he was to meet with Hocutt, Gillispie
called 911 and was taken to a Lubbock hospital, where he spent six days.
He later told the Avalanche-Journal he thought he was having a heart attack or a stroke.
Early
this month Hocutt announced that the school had reprimanded Gillispie
in January for exceeding practice-time limits the previous fall. The
letter included language that there would be "no tolerance for disregard
of rules," Hocutt told the Associated Press.
The school penalized
itself for the overage, docking twice the number of hours that
Gillispie had exceeded during a two-week period in October, or 12 hours
and 20 minutes. An unidentified assistant coach was also reprimanded.
The NCAA allows 20 hours of practice a week.
Assistant
Chris Walker was placed in charge of day-to-day operations of the team
when Gillispie went on leave. The school said Thursday that Walker will
stay in that position until an interim head coach "has been identified."
Gillispie is 148-108 in eight seasons overall, including two at Texas-El Paso, three at Texas A&M and two at Kentucky.
He had been out of coaching for two seasons when he was hired by Texas Tech on March 20, 2011.