Report: Mike Anderson seeking damages from St. John's, claims he was fired for Rick Pitino
Former St. John's men's basketball coach Mike Anderson is seeking damages from the school, claiming he was only fired so that the university could hire Rick Pitino.
According to ESPN, Anderson filed documents last month that informed St. John's of a "notice of intention to arbitrate." After previously threatening to sue the school, he is seeking a total of $45.6 million, which is comprised of the remaining $11.4 million that was left on his contract when he was terminated on March 10 and $34.2 million of punitive damages.
St. John's announced the hiring of Pitino from Iona 10 days after terminating Anderson's contract "for cause."
In the filing, which was submitted by John Singer of Singer Deutsch, Anderson denies the school's allegations that he failed to keep up with academic requirements and was a poor representative of the university.
"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 documents say.
At the time of his firing, the athletic department said they were letting Anderson go for a "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" and "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 program and "failure to appropriately supervise and communicate with your assistant coaches."
Anderson says the school acted hypocritically by hiring the "scandal-mired" Pitino, who was fired by Louisville in 2017 amid allegations of recruiting violations that included the school paying a recruit $100,000 and the hiring of prostitutes for recruits. In November, Pitino was exonerated by an independent NCAA investigation arm for alleged recruiting violations. Pitino also had an extramarital affair that came to light in 2009, where he paid for the woman he slept with to have an abortion.
"We dispute the allegations being reported in the media and will vigorously defend those claims in arbitration," St. John's said in a statement to ESPN.
Anderson was the Big East Coach of the Year for the 2020-21 season after leading the Red Storm to a 16-10 regular season record in his second year with the team. In the Fall of 2020, the men's basketball team had an average GPA of 3.27. He received a contract extension through 2026-2027 after the successful year.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Mike Anderson seeking damages from St. John's over firing
