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Myron Medcalf, ESPN Staff Writer
Former St. John’s men’s basketball coach Mike Anderson is seeking nearly $46 million from the school after he claims he was fired with cause in March only so the school could avoid paying his buyout and use the money to hire Rick Pitino, per arbitration documents obtained by ESPN on Thursday.
In the “notice of intention to arbitrate” filed last month by Anderson’s lawyer, Michael J. Keane of Garfunkel Wild, Anderson said he’s seeking the $11.4 million that was left on his contract and an additional $34.2 million for “punitive” damages.
St. John’s lured Pitino from Iona after firing Anderson on March 10.
According to the termination letter obtained by ESPN, Anderson was fired for “failure to create and support an environment that strongly encourages student-athletes who are in the men’s basketball program to meet all university academic requirements,” “failure to perform your duties and responsibilities in a manner that reflected positively on St. John’s University … in actions [that] brought serious discredit” to the school and “failure to appropriately supervise and communicate with your assistant coaches.”
Per documents obtained by ESPN, Anderson claims St. John’s officials had tried to offer him a buyout for less than the $11.4 million remaining on his deal before it accused him of “fictitious” problems within his program and fired him for cause on March 10.
The university has not responded to ESPN’s attempt for comments related to the arbitration documents.
On the day he was fired, Anderson claims the school had already entered advanced talks with Pitino, who was officially hired March 20.
Anderson said he never changed and represented the school in a “first class manner” after he signed an extension in 2021 until the day he was dismissed in March. In the documents, Anderson said St. John’s instead focused “on marshaling and amalgamating enough assets” for an offer “to the legendary and scandal-mired NBA and college basketball coach Rick Pitino to join St. John’s as the new head coach.”
Terms of the deal between Pitino and St. John’s were not announced, but sources told ESPN that it was for six years and reportedly is worth $20 million.
“St. John’s manufactured out of whole cloth its preposterous ‘for cause’ termination of Mr. Anderson’s employment with the sole purpose of attempting to extricate the University from its $11.4 million ironclad contractual obligation to Mr. Anderson, specifically so that it could otherwise divert those funds to Pitino,” the filing by Anderson’s representative says.
In his four seasons at St. John’s, Anderson had a 68-56 record and was 30-46 in the Big East.
In the documents, Anderson, who had previously announced his intent to sue St. John’s, said the school in February began making false accusations that he had been dealing with cognitive issues. During a “hostile” phone call, per Anderson’s legal filing, Joseph Oliva, the general counsel for St. John’s, told one of the former head coach’s reps that Anderson “did not in any way resemble the coach from the prior four years” and seemed “about gone” mentally.
In his legal filing, Anderson also refuted the school’s claim that his team had struggled academically, citing his program’s Big East academic excellence award in 2020 for the highest cumulative GPA in the conference — the first in program history. He said his team’s GPA slipped after COVID but never to a degree that would jeopardize his program’s APR.
The arbitration documents filed by Anderson also accuse the school of hypocrisy by firing him for cause but hiring Pitino, who had been “enmeshed in one highly publicized, sensational scandal after another over the years.”
Louisville fired Pitino for cause in 2017, citing a scandal involving escorts who’d been hired for parties for recruits and resulted in the school vacating its 2013 national title, and also an FBI investigation surrounding former recruit Brian Bowen II.
The final ruling from the NCAA’s outside enforcement arm on the FBI case exonerated Pitino, and his lawsuit against Louisville for the amount remaining on his contract was settled two years ago.