Mike Anderson, the former University of Arkansas head basketball coach who landed the top job at St. John’s in 2019 after he was fired at Arkansas, is seeking $45.6 million from St. John’s in the wake of the school firing him in March.
Anderson alleges that he was fired with cause only so the school could use money owed to him to hire legendary coach Rick Pitino, ESPN reports. Anderson wants the $11.4 million left on his contract and an additional $34.2 million for punitive damages.
From the ESPN report:
Anderson said that he never changed and that he represented the school in a “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 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 coach’s representatives 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 rebutted 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 (academic progress rate).
