STILLWATER, Okla. — Kurt Budke turned Oklahoma State’s women’s basketball team into a winner and hoped he’d found the place where he’d coach until he retired. Miranda Serna had passed up opportunities to leave his side, staying loyal to the man whom she had helped to win a junior college national championship and then rebuild a big- time college program.
Having succeeded together, Budke and Serna died together — perishing in a plane crash on a trip aimed at building their team’s future.
Budke, the head coach, and Serna, his assistant, were killed Thursday when the single-engine plane transporting them on a recruiting trip crashed in steep terrain in Arkansas, the university said Friday. The pilot, 82-year-old former Oklahoma state Sen. Olin Branstetter, and his 79-year-old wife, Paula, also died when the plane sputtered, spiraled out of control and nosedived into the Winona Wildlife Management Area near Perryville, about 45 miles west of Little Rock. There were no survivors.
“This is our worst nightmare. The entire OSU family is very close, very close indeed,” OSU president Burns Hargis said. “To lose anyone, especially these two individuals who are incredible life forces in our family, it is worse beyond words.”
The crash was the second major tragedy for the sports program in about a decade. In January 2001, 10 men affiliated with the university’s men’s basketball team died in a plane crash about 40 miles east of Denver.
“When something like this happens and, God forbid it happened again, we have to pull together as a family. We’ve got to try to do that,” Hargis said, as he broke down in tears.
After the 2001 crash, the university required planes used by the school’s sports team undergo safety checks before travel. Hargis said coaches were not bound by the same rules and that the school left such decisions to their discretion.
Former assistant coach Jim Littell will serve as interim head coach. The team’s games scheduled for today and Sunday were canceled. The university said a service will be held Monday at Gallagher-Iba Arena, where the team plays its basketball games.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jason Aguilera said it would issue a preliminary report in five days, but it could be more than a year before the agency’s investigation is complete.
For some, the news brought back emotions felt a decade ago.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about one of those guys,” said Eddie Sutton, the OSU men’s basketball coach at the time of the 2001 crash. “It’s emotional, believe me. This brings back a lot of unpleasantness.”
