On the less honorable spectrum of the American elite
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Speaking of high-earning people who don’t feel they should have to pay for anything, it looks like Gordon Gee’s very recently highest-paid employee has decided not to go quietly:
Former West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is doubling down on his claim that he never technically resigned from the school, stating in a public letter on Monday that West Virginia University “did not handle the situation appropriately.” Huggins also wrote, “I have a strong desire to conclude my career” at WVU.
West Virginia’s general counsel responded with a definitive letter of rebuttal to Huggins’ lawyer.
It’s a continuation of a bizarre saga that bubbled up over the weekend, when a lawyer from Ohio who recently retained Huggins as a client sent a letter to WVU president E. Gordon Gee. The letter attempted to clarify Huggins’ employment status at WVU and requested he eventually be reinstated after undergoing rehabilitation counseling for alcohol abuse. There was threat of legal action otherwise, to which the school’s attorney responded that Huggins would not be re-hired.
It has made for a spectacle after a disastrous fall for Huggins, 69, who was the active Division I leader in wins at the time of his resignation. The Hall of Fame coach who spent 16 seasons coaching his alma mater is leaning on in the notion that he never technically resigned from his post after being arrested for drunk driving, with one of his tires destroyed, and registering a .210 blood alcohol level in Pittsburgh on June 16. Huggins and WVU split the next day.
The response by WVU’s lawyers is priceless, the more formal version of Arkell v. Pressdam.
I can’t believe that Huggins thinks that he’s ever going to coach at WVU again — presumably the point is to try to divert some money from Gee’s personal entertainment, automobile, and bow tie fund on his way out. Even then, this seems like an uphill climb. It’s particularly telling that WVU’s response repeatedly observes that this suit was not brought by Huggins’s usual lawyer. My guess is that Huggins proposed the idea of claiming he didn’t actually resign to his real lawyer, the lawyer told him he was out of his fucking mind, and then he found someone who would actually do this, presumably after securing a generous retainer. It reminds me of Mark Whitacre hiring a lawyer to sue the FBI.
Elsewhere in peonage ball coaches behaving badly, Pat Fitzgerald’s position turned out to be unsustainable.