Ex-coach Anderson seeks $45.6 M from St. John’s

• Myron Medcalf, ESPN

  • Personnel WriterMay 11, 2023, 12:54 PM ET Close Covers college basketball
  • Signed up with ESPN.com in 2011
  • Graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato

Previous St. John’s men’s basketball coach Mike Anderson is looking for nearly $46 million from the school after he claims he was fired with cause in March just so the school might prevent paying his buyout and use the money to hire Rick Pitino, per arbitration files obtained by ESPN on Thursday.In the”notice of objective to arbitrate” submitted last month by Anderson’s lawyer, John Singer of Singer Deutsch, 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 tempted 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 highly motivates student-athletes who remain in the men’s basketball program to satisfy all university scholastic requirements,””failure to perform your responsibilities and obligations in a way that reflected positively on St. John’s University … in actions [that] brought major reject”to the school and” failure to appropriately monitor and interact with your assistant coaches.”Editor’s Picks

1 Associated Per documents gotten by ESPN, Anderson declares St. John’s officials had tried to offer him a buyout for less than the $11.4 million staying on his deal before the school implicated him of “fictitious” problems within his program and fired him for cause on March 10.

The university has not reacted to ESPN’s effort for remarks connected to the arbitration documents.On the day he was fired, Anderson declares the school had actually currently gotten in sophisticated talks with Pitino, who was officially employed March 20.

Anderson stated that he never altered and that he represented the school in a “very first class manner” after he signed an extension in 2021 and until the day he was dismissed in March. In the documents, Anderson said St. John’s rather focused “on marshaling and integrating adequate assets” for an offer “to the famous and scandal-mired NBA and college basketball coach Rick Pitino to join St. John’s as the new head coach.”

Terms of the deal in between Pitino and St. John’s were not announced, but sources told ESPN that it was for 6 years and reportedly is worth $20 million.

“St. John’s produced out of entire fabric its preposterous ‘for cause’ termination of Mr. Anderson’s work with the sole purpose of attempting to liberate the University from its $11.4 million ironclad contractual obligation to Mr. Anderson, particularly so that it could otherwise divert those funds to Pitino,” the filing by Anderson’s representative says.In his 4 seasons at St. John’s, Anderson had a 68-56 record and was 30-46 in the Huge East.In the documents, Anderson, who had previously revealed his intent to sue St. John’s, stated the school in February started making false allegations that he had been handling cognitive concerns. During a “hostile” phone call, per Anderson’s legal filing, Joseph Oliva, the basic counsel for St. John’s, told one of the previous coach’s representatives that Anderson “did not in any way look like the coach from the previous 4 years” and seemed “about gone” mentally.In his legal filing, Anderson likewise rebutted the school’s claim that his group had struggled academically, citing his program’s Big East scholastic excellence award in 2020 for the highest cumulative GPA in the conference– the very first in program history. He stated his team’s GPA slipped after COVID but never to a degree that would threaten his program’s APR(academic development rate). The arbitration documents filed by Anderson also accuse the school of hypocrisy by shooting him for cause however employing Pitino, who had been “enmeshed in one highly publicized, mind-blowing scandal after another over the years.”Louisville fired Pitino for cause in 2017, pointing out an examination into the program apparently employing escorts for parties to help recruit players that led to the school vacating its 2013 national title and an FBI investigation surrounding previous recruit Brian Bowen II.The final ruling from the NCAA’s outside enforcement arm on the FBI case exonerated Pitino, and his claim against Louisville for the quantity remaining on his contract was settled 2 years back.