KU Athletics must turn over documents to former football coach David Beaty: judge
A Kansas judge ordered Kansas Athletics turn over evidence of how it treated and handled coaches accused of committing NCAA violations to lawyers representing former football coach David Beaty.
The order issued Tuesday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Gwynne E. Birzer in Wichita is a boost for Beaty’s 2019 lawsuit against Kansas Athletics. The lawsuit accuses Kansas Athletics of concocting a way to reclassify his firing so that it could avoid paying him $3 million due under the remainder of his contract.
Beaty was originally fired during another unsuccessful Kansas Jayhawks football season in 2018. Beaty said upon his firing that KU athletic director Jeff Long told the coach he would get his $3 million. Later, Beaty was informed that his payments would be withheld while the football program was being investigated for potential NCAA violations.
It emerged that one of Beaty’s analysts had given coaching instruction to players, breaking a rule that limits how many people can be involved in directing players.
Beaty’s lawyers want to explore how Kansas Athletics has handled coaches of other programs accused of breaking NCAA bylaws to support the idea that Beaty was treated differently to get out from under a $3 million payout.
Specifically, they want to know Kansas Athletics treated current football coach Les Miles after a story in The Star revealed multiple analysts giving impermissible coaching to players in 2019, based on practice footage that was publicly available. It’s similar to the violation that Kansas Athletics used as the reasoning to not pay Beaty, although KU self-reported those at Level II, a step more serious than what the school self-reported in the case of the analysts working under Miles.
Beaty’s lawyers also would like to find out how Kansas Athletics responded when the men’s basketball program was accused of major violations stemming from disclosures made during a criminal trial in 2018 involving Adidas executives and consultants accused corrupting NCAA amateurism rules. References in that trial were made to coach Bill Self and his assistant Kurtis Townsend and their alleged knowledge of impermissible contacts and payments to recruits.
Finally, Beaty’s lawyers would like to see evidence about how Kansas Athletics handled former KU football coach Mark Mangino when the program was placed on probation and lost scholarships for academic fraud violations.
Birzer, in her ruling Tuesday, said Beaty’s legal team was entitled to additional documents from KU Athletics, in part, because: “There exists a question of fact whether, if (KU Athletics) had known of Beaty’s alleged NCAA violation, it would have actually terminated Beaty’s employment for cause. Given the claims and defenses in this case, it is not far-fetched to believe a reasonable jury might find Beaty’s conduct did not constitute a true default of this employment contract because (KU) did not consider similar actions by other coaches a default.”
As part of the order, Birzer commanded KU Athletics to respond to Beaty’s lawyers’ discovery requests, with both parties directed to come together to create an appropriate timeline for the production of those documents.
This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 4:19 PM.
