Sutton said, "It's the worst experience I had in all the 47 years I coached basketball. There's nothing to compare to it."
Sutton said he heard the news around 6 a.m. The phone rang and it was a dear friend of Coach Budke's.
Sutton said, "I was shocked. Kurtis was certainly a dear friend of mine. A wonderful coach and outstanding human being and that's a great loss."
He added, "I had lunch with him about three weeks ago and he was so excited about this season because he thought he was going to have a nice ball club."
He said he's still surprised two accidents like this could happen to the same program.
"It just seems like it's not possible for one school, Oklahoma State, to have two catastrophes dealing with plane wrecks. It was 10 years and 10 months ago when we lost 10 quality people and there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about that," said Sutton.
He said he'll join others in giving as much support as he can to everyone involved.
"I told them anything I can do to help them because I learned a great deal about life and death. The one thing that came out of that for me was that accident can happen, life is precious and one can be here today and gone tomorrow."
Sutton said since the first tragedy he makes sure to call his sons, two who are still coaching, and tells them he loves them.
Sutton also said the counseling system at Oklahoma State is great and ther are plenty of people on campus ready to help students, players and coaches through the tragedy.
