Editor's note: When IU women's basketball coach Teri Moren passed Jim Izard's mark as IU's winningest coach on Jan. 18, 2023, IndyStar sought to tell the story of the program's previous top coach — and discovered a complex tale marked as much by off-court tragedy as on-court success. This story explores suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or talk with someone at 988lifeline.org .

BLOOMINGTON — There was something about Jim Izard that was different. But retired Indiana University professor Dr. Jim Sherman can't quite put his finger on whether different is the right word. Maybe strange fits Izard better or demonstrative or shady. Sherman said he even heard whispers of another word around the IU campus being used to describe Izard all those year ago.

Coach Lizard. That's what some people called the IU women's basketball coach. "There was, you know, I guess there was some buzz that he was kind of slimy," Sherman told IndyStar.

Izard had a controversial reputation on campus in his 12 years as coach from 1988 to 2000, according to Sherman. But no one was looking at the women's basketball program. Unless something egregious was happening, IU athletics officials in the 1980s and 1990s didn't disturb the status quo, Sherman said.

Especially in a sport that no one was really following or writing about at the time.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

Except for those powerhouse schools like Tennessee, Stanford, Connecticut or Louisiana Tech, "women's basketball was a very, very, very low priority," Sherman said. "There was not a whole lot of interest. Games weren't televised, so how the coach did or how he acted was not all that relevant to the athletic department."

But the discipline. The hard-nosed approach. The intense tactics Izard used were seemingly similar to his IU coaching counterpart on the men's side, a fiery, red-sweatered coach named Bobby Knight.

“If he’s the king of Indiana,” Izard would often say about Knight, “I’ll just be the queen."

Izard had reason to be confident. Leading up to his hiring at IU in May 1988 when he was in his late 30s, Izard had helped his previous teams rack up a lot of victories, making stops at Livingston University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Louisiana State University and DePaul University. As the new head coach taking over IU's program, he had a record of 163-49.

And Izard quickly brought that success to the Hoosiers. In his 12 seasons at IU, Izard became the winningest coach in women's basketball history, racking up a record of 188-159. He took his team to the NCAA Tournament in 1994 and 1995.

But in March 2000, a precursor to what would happen to his men's basketball counterpart Knight just six months later, Izard was fired by IU. His team had ended the season 10-18.

The announcement of Izard's departure was nothing more than a two-paragraph blurb in newspapers. And IU was terse in its statement. Athletic director Clarence Doninger simply said that he appreciated everything Izard had contributed to the program, but it was time "to make a change and go in a different direction."

But after his firing, Izard seemingly went on a downhill spiral, living a life that raised eyebrows and painted the picture of a mysterious man.

First, he sued IU claiming that gender and age discrimination led to his dismissal when the university hired Kathi Bennett as the new women's basketball coach at a much higher salary than he had made. Then Izard married his former IU player Sarah Jo Warner, who was half his age.

He went on to coach at Berry College in Rome, Ga., but abruptly resigned midway through his third season in January 2005 with no explanation other than what the university cited "personal" issues. And after moving to Florida, where he applied for and was denied other coaching jobs, Izard died by suicide in March 2006.

When Sarah Izard called police to report her husband's death, they soon discovered fetuses of two unborn children, one six months gestation and the other eight months in a shed on the Izards' Georgia property. Sarah Izard, according to police reports, told investigators she had self-aborted the babies with wire coat hangers.

What Izard knew about those fetuses would never be known. He was gone. But, after his death, the mystery of a complicated man who had decided he no longer wanted to live only grew deeper.

The murder weapon: An electrical light cord

Izard's childhood had, seemingly, been charmed. He was raised in the Deep South in Fulton, Miss., the son of Phillips Harrison Izard, Sr., and Virginia Izard.

His father worked as an executive at Tupelo Trucking and later was appointed a colonel on Mississippi Gov. John Bell Williams' staff. His mother was a devout Christian and member of Fulton County United Methodist Church and a school teacher at Fulton Elementary.

Growing up, Izard was a handsome, dark-haired, lanky kid. He was funny and loved by his friends and family, Izard's brother Steve said during the eulogy at his memorial service in 2006. Steve Izard recalled how a young Jim would coax his friends into getting up with him at 2 o'clock in the morning to tag along on his milk delivery route. The reward for them: free milk.

Izard was also a standout athlete and a star on the baseball field. He was good enough at Itawamba Agricultural High to get a scholarship to play at the University of Mississippi as a left-handed pitcher.

It was at Ole Miss majoring in physical education and away from home when the first record of any trouble in Izard's life emerged, and it was a devastating blow.

It was Aug. 8, 1968, when his brother died. Phillips Harrison Izard, Jr., a captain in the United States Army, was killed in the province of Quang Ngai during the Vietnam War. The 28-year-old husband and father of three was returning to his command post when his vehicle hit a hostile mine in Vietnam.

Only six months later, another horrific tragedy struck when Izard's mother Virginia was murdered inside the family home.

All of that would have been brutal enough for a young man trying to figure out his way in life. But what came next would have a lasting and profound impact on Izard. His brother was gone, his mom was gone, and soon his father would be gone, too.

Virginia Izard, according to the autopsy report, had died by strangulation inside her home in Fulton, Miss., sometime between midnight and 6 a.m. on Feb. 3, 1969.

According to police reports, Virginia Izard had been ill for "a long time." She was a member of Fulton United Methodist, but rarely made it to services. She had taught school for years on the faculty of Fulton Elementary School, but health issues had forced her retirement.

Due to her illness, Virginia Izard often had difficulty sleeping, police reports said. So in the mornings, the maid would work quietly in another part of the house to allow her to sleep. But at 9 a.m. on that February morning in Mississippi, the maid walked into the bedroom and discovered a terrifying scene.

Virginia Izard was dead at the age of 52. When police arrived, they found an electrical light cord lying on the floor which they determined was the murder weapon that was used to strangle her. After a short investigation, police also discovered what to the family was unthinkable.

Her husband, Izard's father, had murdered Virginia Izard.

Phillips Harrison Izard, Sr., was charged with his wife's murder the same week. Three years later at the age of 56, Izard's father took his life by suicide, according to newspaper reports.

By the time Izard was 22, both his parents were gone, and he had to find a way to move on from the dark cloud that hovered over him.

Coaching basketball would be his answer, pouring his soul into a career that would span more than 30 years.

'A very complex individual'

There were murmurs about Izard's past, his troubled family life around the Bloomington campus, according to Sherman, but the whole thing seemed so bizarre that most people brushed the idea aside. Still, Izard's coaching style raised red flags.

Sherman, a renowned American psychology scholar and professor at IU's department of psychological and brain sciences at the time, would frequently attend sporting events at the university. His wife and her partner were the clinical psychologists that cared for the IU athletes.

When it came to women's sports, even basketball, there was little fanfare or excitement, Sherman said.

"It was a different time then. If there were 500 people in the stands, that was a lot. It wasn't a very popular sport. There wasn't very much written about it," said Sherman. "You know, we were aware that he was winning games. On the other hand, I don't think he had a particularly good reputation as a coach."

Izard's approach to coaching was "probably similar to Knight's," said Sherman, who had struck up a friendship with the men's basketball coach.

"(Izard) wouldn't last a week today as a coach doing what he did, you know, whether it's dating players or the way he would berate them, supposedly. It was just a different era," he said. "And, you know, whether it was football coaches or Knight, it was pretty common to abuse players. That's what you did and nobody complained about it.

"The athletic department just had, I guess, a belief that you don't fire coaches unless it was really, really, really necessary."

Why it became necessary to fire Izard in March 2006 has never been reported. IndyStar reached out to Jeremy Gray, IU's associate athletic director for strategic communications, asking for an interview with the university or someone who was associated with Izard at the time.

Gray said there wasn't "anyone who would have any interaction or familiarity with (Izard) or his time (at IU) that still works" at the university.

There is little to be found on Izard, besides police reports, court records and his obituary. IndyStar reached out to more than 30 people, universities, athletic departments, former players, coaches, friends and his former wife, Sarah Jo Warner Izard. All either declined to comment or didn't respond.

"There was so much to Jim," Shelli (Stewart) Washel, a former associate sports information director who handled IU women's basketball for Izard, said in 2006 after his death. "He could be difficult, but at (the) same time there was a very kind side to him. He was a very complex individual."

And a very successful coach.

When a 35-year-old Izard came to DePaul University in his last coaching stop before IU, he was chosen from a pool of 82 candidates.

"Jim is a dynamic young man who brings to DePaul experience and a wealth of knowledge in the sport of women's basketball," then-athletic director Ed Manetta said of Izard's hire. "The selection committee did an outstanding job."

The 1984-85 DePaul women's basketball program included a lengthy story on the new coach, including his thoughts on the development of women's basketball in recent years and what he expected from his team.

"To play for me, a player must play with a lot of intensity. There must always be maximum effort. They must conform to everything we ask them to do. They must answer the bell at every practice and at every game. They must have a high moral fiber," Izard said in the program's article. "We are looking for players who have enough intelligence to play basketball for DePaul for four years and also receive a degree from the university."

Izard also talked about his goals as the new coach. "The downhill slide of the program has stopped. We are now in a leveling off period," he said. "With two or three good years of recruiting, we want to be among the top 20 teams in the nation and we want to go on to postseason play."

At DePaul, Izard compiled a 90-28 record over four years, including two conference championships and two NIT appearances, including a spot in the NIT championship game in 1988.

His performance as coach at DePaul stood out, and other schools began to take notice, including Indiana.

When IU athletic director Ralph Floyd was looking for a women's basketball coach in 1988 to replace Jorja Hoehn, whose contract had not been renewed after three years, Izard quickly became the frontrunner.

And for the next 12 seasons at IU, Izard would build a highly successful program and become the winningest women's basketball coach in the university's history. All the while, the whispers of the man off the court persisted.

'It was probably a reasonable lawsuit'

Izard's hiring at IU in 1988 was buried inside local sports pages and spanned just three paragraphs, a sign of the times for women's sports. The IU women's games he coached were rarely covered, even as he racked up victories.

Izard led Indiana to the NCAA Tournament in 1994 and 1995 and his Hoosiers were the NIT runner-up in 1992 and reached the NIT Final Four in 1998.

"I always thought he was a very knowledgeable coach," M i ke King , a Bloomington dentist who got to know Izard and would hang out with him, told the Bloomington Herald Times after Izard's death in March 2006. "With what he had, the talent he had, he got a lot out of them. He was very organized."

So when IU fired Izard in 2000 after the Hoosiers went 10-18 in his final season and hired Kathi Bennett to replace him, he filed a lawsuit against Indiana, alleging the school violated federal law, claiming age and sex discrimination.

The lawsuit also alleged that IU violated the Equal Pay Act by giving Bennett a five-year contract that paid her $110,000 in her first year. Izard had worked on a year-to-year basis, according to the lawsuit, earning $76,775 his final year.

Izard claimed in the lawsuit that IU athletic director Doninger "had informed him he wanted to hire a female coach." The complaint was settled out of court for the equivalent of one year of Izard's salary, $76,775.

"It was probably a reasonable lawsuit. He'd been a successful coach for many years and was making 'X' dollars and Kathi Bennett was an unproven coach and she comes in at a much bigger salary," Sherman said. "I mean I understand why he would not be happy with that."

Following his ousting from IU, Izard who had been married once before to Gail Coggins, a native of his hometown of Fulton, married his former player Sarah Jo Warner who played for him at IU from 1995 to 1998. He was in his early 50s and she was in her 20s.

From there, Izard's life took a sad and bizarre turn.

In 2002, Izard and Sarah moved to Rome, Ga., where he coached for Berry College, an NAIA women's program. In two and a half seasons, he posted a 65-53 record and took the team to the NAIA national tournament in 2003.

But in January 2005, Izard and an assistant on his team abruptly resigned midseason for what the university termed "personal" reasons. Izard and Sarah moved to Rosemary Beach, Fla., where Izard applied for other coaching jobs, including one at Clemson, which he did not get.

At the time of his death months later, on Feb. 28, 2006, Izard was not coaching. He died by suicide at the age of 57.

Misunderstood man

News reports in 2006 said Izard had died of a gunshot wound at his home in Rosemary Beach. The Pensacola Medical Examiners Office later ruled the death a suicide.

Days after Izard's death, authorities in Bay County, Florida, received a tip that Sarah Izard had told her friends that she kept the remains of two fetuses in a storage shed in Rome, Ga. When investigators went to the shed, they found two human fetuses hidden in Tupperware containers with air fresheners inside them, according to police reports.

Sarah Izard told authorities she performed the abortions alone with wire coat hangers. She said one abortion had been performed while the couple lived in Georgia and the other while they were living in Florida.

After an investigation, no charges were filed against Sarah Izard. "After a diligent and exhaustive search of the Georgia code, we have not been able to locate any charges that fit the situation with which we've been presented," district attorney Leigh Patterson said in March 2007.

Whether Izard was aware of the abortions has never been determined.

At Izard's memorial service in March 2006 in his hometown of Fulton, Miss., just more than 100 people showed up to pay their condolences. That was odd for a man who had coached hundreds of young women throughout a career that spanned three decades.

One friend spoke during the eulogy. So did Izard's brother, Steve, who said "the charismatic man who laughed and loved life was the lasting image he wanted everyone to recall when they heard his brother’s name."

After Izard's death, IU issued a statement. "We are very saddened by Jim's death," Pete Rhoda, then-director of sports information at Indiana University, said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends."

Some of those friends in 2006 came forward to talk to the Bloomington Herald Times about Izard, and some said he was misunderstood.

"Jim's No. 1 love was women's basketball," Washel said. "Being a team sport, you spend a lot of time together. Within that framework, we became a family. You spend a lot of Christmases and Thanksgivings with the team, and Jim made sure those atmospheres felt like home. He always made sure we ate at the best restaurants and had the best accommodations."

King said Izard was "fun to go out with."

"He went to Vegas with us a couple times. He loved playing golf and hanging with the guys," King said. "But he always treated women well, especially older women like a mom. He was a charmer."

The late Jim Karl, who owned Yogi's Grill and Bar, one of Izard's favorite Bloomington stops, said he never saw the darker side of Izard. He never saw a man who would take his life.

"He was a fun guy. We had a lot of laughs," Karl said. "He was a generous man, a gracious host and a good salesman."

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow . Reach her via email: .