Texas basketball coach Chris Beard “snapped” and became “super violent” during an argument with his fiancée early Monday, leaving the woman with bite marks, bruises and an abrasion above her right temple, among other visible injuries.
This is all according to an Austin Police arrest affidavit first reported by the Austin American-Statesman on Monday.
It’s hard, knowing what we know about what apparently happened, to imagine Beard, 49, who is free on $10,000 bond on a third-degree felony charge of assault on a family/household member impeding breath circulation, surviving this.
Because what we know is jarring.
According to Austin Police, officers were called to Beard’s home at 2:07 a.m. for a “disturbance-urgent” call.
Beard’s fiancée, Randi Trew, a former Texas Tech volleyball player who is now a coach with the Texas Titans volleyball club, told police that the couple had been upset with each other for several days over relationship issues.
During their argument early Monday morning, Trew told police she had taken Beard’s reading glasses from his hand and broken them.
Beard, she told police, responded by slapping her glasses from her face, then “choked me, threw me off the bed, bit me, bruises all over my leg, throwing me around, and going nuts,” according to the affidavit.
“He just snapped on me and became super violent,” Trew said, according to the affidavit.
Trew said Beard choked her from behind, and she said she couldn’t breathe for about five seconds, according to the affidavit.
The alleged choking is what led to the felony charge against Beard.
Beard told police that he had audio recordings of the incident that would show he was not the aggressor, but he refused to share them with officers, police said.
His attorney, Perry Minton, insisted to the Austin American-Statesman that the coach is innocent.
“He should never have been arrested,” Minton told the newspaper. “The complainant wants him released immediately and all charges dismissed. It is truly inconceivable.”
The felony charge facing Beard carries a penalty of 2-10 years in prison, though if the “impeding breath circulation” coda were to be dropped, the charge would be reduced to a Class A misdemeanor, which for a first-time offender would likely lead to a suspended sentence and a fine.
Avoiding jail or prison time is just one of Beard’s concerns right now, though.
The affidavit is damning, listing as Trew’s visible injuries a bite mark to the right forearm, an abrasion to the right eyebrow, an abrasion to the left leg from the knee to the foot, and a cut to the left thumb with dried blood.
In an additional statement, she noted scratches on her back and her right eye, a bite mark to her right arm, an abrasion and bruises to her left leg, and a cut to her left hand.
Beard’s contract includes a standard clause that allows the school to fire him for cause for conduct determined to reflect poorly on the coach, program, school or university system.
Whatever ends up happening with the criminal justice part of this, it’s hard to imagine that the regents at UT aren’t going to view what happened early Monday morning as reflecting poorly on everybody, and want to move on.
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Chris Graham
