Oklahoma State cancels games after crash
Oklahoma State will not play its women’s basketball games this weekend in the wake of a plane crash that killed the team’s head coach and assistant.
Cowgirls coach Kurt Budke and assistant Miranda Serna died in a plane crash in central Arkansas on Thursday.
The two were traveling on a recruiting trip when the plane went down near Perryville, the school said in a news release. The pilot and another passenger, who were not associated with the university, also perished in the crash.
Mike Holder, who is the school’s vice president for athletics, said in a news release Friday that the school is “shocked by this terrible loss.”
Holder also noted that associate head coach Jim Littell will assume the duties as interim coach and that the Cowgirls’ home games against Grambling State on Saturday and Texas-Arlington on Sunday will not be played.
The plane crash comes 10 months after the school commemorated the 10th anniversary of a crash that killed 10 men associated with the men’s program.
Budke, 50, was beginning his seventh year as coach of the Cowgirls. In 2010 season, Oklahoma State won 24 games and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Budke was a two-time NJCAA Coach of the Year winner and youngest coach admitted into its Hall of Fame.
He leaves behind his wife, Shelley, sons Alex and Brett and daughter Sara, who is a student at Oklahoma State.
Serna played on Budke’s 1996 national championship team at Trinity Valley Community College.
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