Beaty offered job by Texas coach Tom Herman before KU AD phone call: deposition
Former Kansas Jayhawks football coach David Beaty testified in February that he was offered a job with the Texas Longhorns until the school’s top athletic administrator received a warning from KU’s athletic director.
Beaty said during a February deposition that he was offered an analyst position by Texas football head coach Tom Herman and moved to Austin — even receiving a university ID number — before Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte decided to call KU athletic director Jeff Long as a courtesy.
“Jeff stated at that point … ‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you. His behavior is egregious,’” Beaty testified. “‘It was definitely Level I.’ And that … I think it made (Texas athletics director) Mr. Del Conte take pause.”
Level I is a reference to the most serious type of violation in the long-winded NCAA manual. Beaty, however, was later accused of a less-serious Level II infraction, which was self-reported by KU to the NCAA.
Long, during his own deposition on Feb. 27, said in sworn testimony that he came to a more harsh conclusion regarding Beaty than the NCAA Committee on Enforcement did in its Notice of Allegations against KU, believing his actions were more serious than the document alleged. Long also said he spoke to Del Conte about Beaty, recalling that he told Del Conte that “David Beaty is involved with serious violations under investigation by the NCAA.”
Long dismissed Beaty in 2018 after another losing at the helm of the moribund Kansas football program, a firing originally done “without cause” contractually and with $3 million owed to the coach under his agreement.
Kansas Athletics, Inc. then suspended, and later terminated Beaty’s payout amid a self-reported investigation into whether Beaty’s video coordinator was coaching Jayhawks quarterbacks in violation of NCAA rules limiting the number of people authorized to provide instruction to players. Beaty is suing KAI, seeking the $3 million owed to him.
Beaty’s deposition was unsealed on Tuesday by U.S. District Court of Kansas Judge Kathryn Vratil, who issued two rulings in the Beaty case. In one, Vratil ruled against Beaty’s motion for summary judgment on his claim that Kansas Athletics breached its contract with the football coach.
She rejected Beaty’s arguments that he had no contractual duty to report potential NCAA violations as well as his position that because his contract doesn’t specifically allow for retroactive termination, that it’s then prohibited.
Vratil in a separate ruling declined to reconsider a magistrate judge’s ruling that ordered KAI to turn over to Beaty’s lawyers information about how it dealt with other problems involving KU coaches.
Those include Kansas Athletics’ response to Level I violations alleged by the NCAA against men’s basketball coach Bill Self stemming from criminal trials involving an Adidas employee and consultant, as well as its response to a Kansas City Star article showing similar violations KAI reported against Beaty occurring under current football coach Les Miles.
Beaty’s deposition occurred on Feb. 4 in Kansas City; he was questioned by KAI outside attorney Perry Brandt.
Brandt peppered Beaty about interviews given by former Jayhawks quarterbacks who said that video coordinator Jeff Love provided technical instruction to them, a potential violation that formed the basis of KAI’s decision to reclassify Beaty’s firing.
In some instances, players said Beaty was in meetings when Love’s instruction of quarterbacks occurred.
Beaty said players were confused or mistaken, insisting on one instance that he was out of town on recruiting visits during a meeting in which Love apparently instructed players. Beaty denied knowing or being told about what Love was doing, and also claimed that the players could have been referring to a time period when Love was allowed to coach them after Love was promoted to full-time assistant midway through the 2018 season.
Beaty also testified that key donors to KU’s NCAA program, including the Andersons, Fritzels and Sutters, contacted him after his firing to speak of their misgivings over the situation, with Beaty saying they told him that KU was “looking for a reason to withhold my money.”
“I mean those were the kind of ones that I remember, you know, just expressing their sympathies and … expressed their embarrassment for what was taking place,” Beaty said.
Dana and Sue Anderson are longtime KU Athletics donors, pledging $12 million in 2006 toward the construction of a new football facility; that building bears their name — the Anderson Family Football Complex — and is located adjacent to KU football’s Booth Memorial Stadium.
Also after Beaty’s firing, according to his testimony, KU archrival Missouri and Arkansas reached out to him about his interest in unspecified opportunities there, but Beaty had his sights set on Texas because of his previous relationship with Herman.
Instead, Beaty last year said he only received income as an Uber driver and from three motivational speaking engagements.
This story was originally published April 15, 2020 at 11:04 AM.
