Ohio State Must Pay O’Brien Millions Plus Interest

Jim O’Brien, now 56, coached the Ohio State University basketball team, the Buckeyes, for seven years. Under his guidance the team earned a 133-88 record that included two Big Ten titles and a conference tournament title, and they made it to the Final Four in 1999. But in June of 2004, O’Brien was unceremoniously fired after he revealed to then-athletic director Andy Geiger that he had given $6,000 to a recruit, Serbian prospect Aleksandar Radojevic.

O’Brien said he gave the money to Radojevic in 1999 because the player’s father was dying, and his family was unable to pay for medicine or a funeral. Geiger wasn’t told about the payment, and later the NCAA ruled Radojevic ineligible to play because of accepting $9,000 to play in his native Yugoslavia. Ohio State appealed the NCAA decision, asking them to restore Radojevic’s eligibility, but O’Brien didn’t mention his payment during the lengthy appeals process. But the appeal to the NCAA was turned down, and Radojevic never played for the Buckeyes.

When O’Brien was fired, he immediately filed suit against the university, saying that the university did not follow his contract in releasing him. He asked for reimbursement for his annual salary of $236,552, plus damages of $3.3 million. He still had more than five years left on his contract, which specified he would be due 3 ½ times his base salary for the length of time remaining on the agreement if he was let go.

Ohio State defended their actions by saying that O’Brien was owed nothing since he had broken NCAA rules by giving Radojevic the money, and therefore he had violated his contract before they fired him. But Judge Joseph T. Clark agree with O’Brien in February, ruling that although the coach had broken his contract by giving the money without notifying university officials, the error was not serious enough to warrant firing him, and the university could not fire him without compensation.

The university appealed the decision, but to no avail. The same judge on Wednesday issued a ruling saying that the university must pay O’Brien about $2.2 million plus interest for firing him. Clark’s ruling said, "... this single, isolated failure of performance was not so egregious" to lead to O'Brien's firing under the lenient terms of his contract."

Ohio State vice president and general counsel Christopher Culley responded to the ruling in a statement. "The NCAA sanctions that followed the court's initial decision in February 2006 validated the serious nature of the violations and reinforced to us that we took the appropriate action in terminating his contract." Culley said he expects the university to appeal the decision.