How has Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt not been fired? Let him answer that.

Inside the club area at Jones AT&T Stadium last week in Lubbock, Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt did not look like a man who is fighting to keep his job. Because he’s not.

Whatever anyone wants to say about Hocutt’s tenure in Lubbock, the man is a survivor who mastered the art of keeping the people who help keep him in place secure in their belief that he knows what he is doing. He has done that much right, at least.

He also knows how some of this looks. And how some of this can look is that people in his position have been fired for far less than what has transpired during some of his time on the Plains.

“They know who I am as a man. They know who I am as a leader. They know my core values and how I operate,” he said in an interview with the Star-Telegram. “One of our guiding principles, and we only have four for our department, is that success is built through quality relationships. Healthy relationships. We have done that.

“When I was at Miami, the president (Donna Shalala) told me, ‘Kirby, there are going to be issues every day that we have to address. Never walk past an issue and not correct it, or address it.’ Any time a situation that has been brought to me, we’ve addressed it.”

As bad luck would have it, more issues are on his desk as recently as right now.

On Tuesday night in Lubbock, Texas Tech’s final home basketball game against Texas as a conference member went waist deep into a very full toilet. In the second half of UT’s blowout win, Texas forward Brock Cunningham hip checked Texas Tech’s Darrion Williams out of bounds.

It was a dirty play, and Cunningham earned his ejection. A handful of Tech fans, already fueled with a combination of disgust and alcohol, threw things onto the floor, including water bottles. Of course video from this went viral, and it’s ugly.

These are the types of things that fall on Hocutt’s desk. Not his fault, but it’s his job.

Since he was hired in March of 2011 Texas Tech, Hocutt has:

* Fired two football coaches, watched one quit, and now is on his fourth.

* Fired two men’s basketball coaches, watched two quit, and now is on his sixth.

* Fired three women’s basketball coaches, and now is on his fourth. One of those coaches, Marlene Stollings, was fired in Aug. of 2020 after a report from USA Today outlined a pattern of abusive, and troubling, behavior by her and staff members.

In some of these cases, there are circumstances out of Hocutt’s control. In others, they were hires that didn’t work.

If a person wants to toss Hocutt into the AD dumpster for that run, then they must acknowledge the other side to his tenure.

Since he was hired in March of 2011, Texas Tech athletics has:

* Finished as the national runner-up in men’s basketball, in 2019.

* Under coach Tim Tadlock, whom Hocutt hired, the Red Raiders have reached the college baseball World Series four times.

* In the spring of 2018, he was named the Under Armour Athletics Director of the Year by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA).

* The men’s track and field team won the NCAA outdoor title in 2019.

* Hocutt’s tenure has been the most successful period in school history, with 16 of the 17 athletic programs reaching the NCAA’s postseason, or bowl. As much as these achievements matter, for an athletic director Hocutt knows the priority. It’s not the men’s golf team.

“Respectfully, (the men’s golf team) is not football in the state of Texas,” Hocutt said. “Those things do matter greatly, but this fan base and this community are hungry for that type of success in football. You can see from the investment that’s taking place here at this stadium.”

Tech is in the process of finishing its $224 million football stadium expansion project that will give the venue new offices, suites, etc. At a minimum, in the insane arms race that is major athletics, under Hocutt Tech has done everything possible to remain competitive in terms of facilities, and toys.

All of it is done in the hopes of returning Tech to the level of success, and interest, the program achieved under a coach it fired, the late Mike Leach. Leach was fired in 2009, and died in Dec. of 2022.

“If you go back to the brand and the presence that Texas Tech had when Mike Leach was leading the program it was incredible,” said Hocutt, who was at both Ohio and Miami as athletic director when Leach put together his run at Tech.

“Texas Tech was recognizable. Our fan base continues to be hungry for that level of success. I refuse to let any doubt or self pity seep in. I am more determined than ever to reach that level of success in football. I know what we are capable of.”

The level of success that he refers to is almost 15 years ago. Tech, and Hocutt specifically, really need third-year coach Joey McGuire to work.

College fan bases aren’t exactly known for patience, and Hocutt has heard it from Red Raiders fans over the years that Tech would be wise to hand him a one-way bus ticket to Spokane. In a community the size of Lubbock, 260,000, where Texas Tech is the thing to do, Hocutt is a celebrity of sorts.

He’s the easiest of targets.

Having played college football at Kansas State in the ‘90s under Bill Snyder, and then entering college athletics as an administrator, he’s been around long enough to know the routine. Which is what this is.

Tech has had its moments since he was hired, save for the one sport that is the king and queen. You don’t have to tell him. He knows it.

He also knows he’s under contract with Tech through the 2029-’30 season.

“There are things that have happened here that I can’t talk about publicly, but the leadership here knows what kind of program I run, and fortunately they believe in it as I do,” Hocutt said.

Which explains why he knows he’s not fighting for his job.