Texas Tech Extends Tim Tadlock, Three Other Coaches

Friday, Texas Tech athletics director Kirby Hocutt signed Tim Tadlock, Wes Kitley, Greg Sands and Todd Petty to contract extensions ensuring the future of a large portion of the Red Raider athletic program.

Following one of the most successful athletic years in school history, Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt is trying to ensure that the coaches responsible for that success remain part of the Red Raider family for the foreseeable future.

During the 2017-18 academic year, five Texas Tech athletic programs, men’s basketball, baseball, men’s golf, men’s track and field and women’s tennis reached at least the final eight of their respective postseason events.

In March, men’s basketball head coach Chris Beard received a 6-year, $19 million extension after he guided his team to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.  Friday, the other four head coaches to achieve similar success last year were rewarded.

Head baseball coach Tim Tadlock is the most prominent of the four and after taking the Red Raiders to the College World Series for the third time in five seasons, he is also the most handsomely compensated.  Now locked up through the 2025 season, Tadlock is set to make $7 million over the next seven years.

In six seasons, Tadlock has amassed an overall record of 217-114 ( a .656 winning percentage) while leading Tech to Omaha three times and brining home Big 12 regular season titles in 2016 and 2017.  The former Red Raider infielder was named the 2014 College Baseball Hall of Fame National Coach of the Year, the Big 12 Coach of the Year in 2016 and the D1Baseball.com National Coach of the Year in 2018.

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But if there is a coach on campus whose career accomplishments might rival Tadlock’s, it would be track and field head coach Wes Kittley who received a five-year $1.85 million contract extension from the Texas Tech regents Friday.

Kittley coached the Red Raider track and field teams to Big 12 titles in both the the indoor and outdoor portions of the schedule in 2018 while earning a sixth place finish in the national indoor meet and a fifth place finish in the national outdoor meet.

The 2014 Big 12 Men’s Coach of the Year, Kittley has coached 17 men’s and women’s individual event national champions since arriving on campus in 2000. He has also produced 205 All-Americans and 111 Big 12 champions.  Along the way, he has helped guide the men’s track program to four Big 12 titles.

As for men’s head golf coach Greg Sands, whose team was one of eight to reach the match-play portion of the NCAA Championships, he was rewarded with an annual raise from $170,000 to $215,000 as part of a six-year $1.35 million extension.  Sands’ golf team has been the most consistent program on campus reaching the NCAA Tournament for 17-consecutive years, a record for any program in Texas Tech history.

Meanwhile, women’s tennis head coach Todd Petty has signed a five-year deal worth $925,000.  In his 10th season at Texas Tech, Petty led his team to the Elite 8 of the NCAA Tournament for the second-consecutive season and his team has reached the Sweet 16 four-consecutive years. The three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year (2011, 2012, 2017) has put the Red Raiders in the NCAA Tournament for seven-consecutive seasons, the best run in program history.

Under Hocutt’s leadership, the Texas Tech athletic department has had an unprecedented run of success as a whole and these moves will help ensure that the coaches responsible for that run stay in Lubbock.  Now, if we could only get the football and women’s basketball programs on the same upward track.