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22 Legal Issues Collegiate Athletics 1 (2020-2021)

handle is hein.journals/lica22 and id is 1 raw text is: November 2020 Volume 22, Issue 1

Legal Issues in
A Report of Court Decisions, Legislation and Regulations Affecting Collegiate Athletics
Gottfried V. N.C. State: Lawsuit by Ex-
Coach With Explosive Implications                     (IiUIh1N:'     F  iI[tp

By Gary J. Chester
The one-count complaint filed by a
former men's basketball coach against
North Carolina State University in the
U.S. District Court in North Carolina
in August is remarkably short on details.
The former coach, Mark Gottfried, al-
leges that the university breached its
contract with him when it stopped
making monthly buyout payments to
him in 2018. The complaint is sparse
on factual allegations, even failing to set
forth how much money N.C. State still
owes Gottfried.1
But this seemingly innocuous civil
litigation has the potential to be extremely
1 https://wwwcache.wralsportsfan.com/asset/colleges/
ncsu/2020/09/01/1 9265992/dkt_1_Complaint-
DMID 1-5o1rwma24.pdf

contentious and hugely embarrassing to
both parties and to college basketball.
Gottfried, after all, was the first coach
directly linked to a federal investigation
into improper payments made to high
school recruits.
The marriage between the parties was
consummated in 2011 after N.C. State
dispensed with head coach Sidney Lowe,
a key player on the Wolfpack's 1984
national title team who never led his
alma mater to the NCAA tournament
in five seasons.
N.C. State fell in love with Gottfried,
who was a key assistant to Jim Harrick on
UCLA's 1995 championship team and
had enjoyed successful head coaching
runs at Murray State and Alabama. The
See GOTTFRIED on Page 14

William & Mary Restores Programs in the
Midst of a Title IX Controversy

By Ellen J. Staurowsky, Ed.D.,
Senior Writer and Professor, Sports
Media, Roy H. Park School of
Communications, Ithaca College,
staurows@ithaca.edu
To quote Yogi Berra or John Fogarty, it
was like deja vu all over again at the Col-
lege of William & Mary (W & M) on
September 3, 2020 when administrators
announced a decision to eliminate seven
varsity sports teams, including men's and
women's gymnastics, men's and women's
swimming, men's track and field, and
women's volleyball. Citing a projected
budget shortfall due to the pandemic, W
& M president Katharine Rowe and other

officials (2020) wrote in an open letter that
Although the Department of Intercol-
legiate Athletics just concluded one of its
strongest fundraising years in history, the
harsh financial realities of COVID-19 on
the entire university as well as on athletics,
have led us to conclude that sustaining our
current offering of 23 varsity programs in
no longer possible.
W & M VIOLATES TITLE IX A
SECOND TIME BY CUTTING WOMEN'S
TEAMS
Although assurances were offered when the
cuts were announced that consideration

See WILLIAM on Page 16

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