Adam Zagoria covers basketball at all levels. He is the author of two books and an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Sports Illustrated, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide.
UConn Paying Big Bucks for Legal Defense (UPDATED)
The UConn athletic department is paying out big bucks to defend itself against the recruiting violations first reported by Yahoo! Sports a year ago.
According to the Hartford Courant, UConn’s legal bills have already exceeded $700,000, and that may just be the beginning.
The Courant reported that UConn will pay$375,000 to Overland Park, Kansas law firm Bond Schoeneck & King PLLC, in addition to the $338,000 the firm already received from the university.
“There is no taxpayer money or student tuition monies involved,” Mike Enright, a spokesman for the UConn athletic department, told the Courant. ” All of these bills are being paid through self-generated funds by the athletic department.”
Yet as this USA Today database shows, UConn needed $8.2 million in student fees and $5.6 in university funds to balance the budget in 2008-09.
With a $13.8 million deficit, all the extra expenditures come back on students and taxpayers, eventually.
Paul McDowell, UConn’s chief financial officer, confirmed a recent Wall Street Journal report that the investigation into the recruitment of Nate Miles is ongoing.
“At this time, the investigation is ongoing, with interviews of relevant persons continuing, and with the ongoing provision of information and responses to NCAA questions,” McDowell wrote in an email to the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management obtained by the Courant.
In the email, McDowell said the school’s fees “are more than double those of most years due to the NCAA investigation of the men’s basketball team” and that the university is uncertain how much it will ultimately have to pay in legal fees.
“We can’t speculate on how much this is going to cost us because we don’t know when the NCAA investigation will be concluded,” Enright told the Courant.
Even with the ongoing investigation, UConn coach Jim Calhoun just inked a five-year contract extension, retroactive to July 2009, that will pay him $13 million.
Follow Adam Zagoria on Twitter.
Adam Zagoria is a Basketball Insider who covers basketball at all levels. A contributor to The New York Times and SportsNet New York (SNY), he is also the author of two books and is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker. His articles have appeared in ESPN The Magazine, SLAM, Sheridan Hoops, Basketball Times and in newspapers nationwide. He also won an Emmy award for his work on the SNY mini-documentary on Syracuse guard Tyus Battle.
A veteran Ultimate Frisbee player, he has competed in numerous National and World Championships and, perhaps more importantly, his teams won the Westchester Summer League (WSL) championships in 2011 and 2013.
He lives in Manhattan with his wife and children.
The UConn athletic department is paying out big bucks to defend itself against the recruiting violations first reported by Yahoo! Sports a year ago.
According to the Hartford Courant, UConn’s legal bills have already exceeded $700,000, and that may just be the beginning.
The Courant reported that UConn will pay$375,000 to Overland Park, Kansas law firm Bond Schoeneck & King PLLC, in addition to the $338,000 the firm already received from the university.
“There is no taxpayer money or student tuition monies involved,” Mike Enright, a spokesman for the UConn athletic department, told the Courant. ” All of these bills are being paid through self-generated funds by the athletic department.”
Yet as this USA Today database shows, UConn needed $8.2 million in student fees and $5.6 in university funds to balance the budget in 2008-09.
With a $13.8 million deficit, all the extra expenditures come back on students and taxpayers, eventually.
Paul McDowell, UConn’s chief financial officer, confirmed a recent Wall Street Journal report that the investigation into the recruitment of Nate Miles is ongoing.
“At this time, the investigation is ongoing, with interviews of relevant persons continuing, and with the ongoing provision of information and responses to NCAA questions,” McDowell wrote in an email to the Connecticut Office of Policy and Management obtained by the Courant.
In the email, McDowell said the school’s fees “are more than double those of most years due to the NCAA investigation of the men’s basketball team” and that the university is uncertain how much it will ultimately have to pay in legal fees.
“We can’t speculate on how much this is going to cost us because we don’t know when the NCAA investigation will be concluded,” Enright told the Courant.
Even with the ongoing investigation, UConn coach Jim Calhoun just inked a five-year contract extension, retroactive to July 2009, that will pay him $13 million.
Follow Adam Zagoria on Twitter.
