Brady Suit

[nomar33]

www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20120501/SPORTS04/305010009/Testimony-continues-Marist-coach-suit?odyssey=mod|newswell|img|Sports|p

Looks like they are finally in the middle of the trial - now i didn't bother to go to law school after Marist so my legal knowledge is lacking but here are some of the points i question

Representing Brady, attorney Richard DuVall said his client asked Murray, his direct superior at the time, for permission to speak with James Madison about its vacancy — a clause in the coach’s contract with Marist required him to seek such permission — and Brady’s 2007 contract extension did not include a “liquidated damages” clause that would require him to pay the school if he left before the contract expired

Did he ask? and was he given permission? I thought Marist is saying he didn't ask?

Hannigan said Brady’s departure, coupled with the fact he allegedly took records with information about 17 players he was recruiting, left Marist administrators “scrambling” to find a new coaching staff and left the program “in shambles, and it will not recover for a while.”

You are not allowed to take any papers usually from ANY company you leave

Marist included an “Other Coaching Positions” clause in Brady’s deal, which stipulated the coach must hand over all files regarding recruits and have no contact with those players should he leave the school.

The problem here is there was nothing in the contract that stipulated what the penalty was for breaking this agreement

Additionally, Murray said when he’d heard “rumors” about Brady staying in touch with those recruits, he called James Madison University Athletic Director Jeff Bourne, not Brady himself.

At that point i got to believe Murray COULDN'T contact another schools head coach directly without violating NCAA rules?


DuVall asked Murray if he or anyone in Marist’s athletic department reached out to the recruits in question after Brady left.

Murray replied, “No.”

I think THAT hurts this case - we didn't even TRY to keep them, contact them - why would they still go to Marist when no one from the school even called them.

[yankee]

I think Marist has little shot against Brady here. Brady violated the contract, but Murray admitted no penalties are stated for doing so? Judge will just say, well you can't expect a court to do so...........Other thing is Marist never told Brady to stop contacting the recruits. Instead they went to the AD with their concerns. Case will be stronger vs JMU. I don't see them getting more than one of those guilty but a $1.00 fine thing in this.

[yankee]

I love Murray, but he didn't follow through enough and I wonder if he even wanted Marist to pursue this. Just my opinion.

[yankee]

Wow, missed we got the 100,000 from JMU in a settlement. Hopefully all this covers the legal fees it took to file this, etc. Brady needs to pay, but I just don't see it happening. He is the dirtbag in all of this.

[oldfox]

May 1, 2012 15:55:14 GMT -5 yankee said:

Wow, missed we got the 100,000 from JMU in a settlement. Hopefully all this covers the legal fees it took to file this, etc. Brady needs to pay, but I just don't see it happening. He is the dirtbag in all of this.

That's the way I see it too yankee. "The Coach who will remain nameless" will probably walk. The institutional level settlement was sweet though. Kudos to Marist for seeing it through, regardless of the outcome at the individual level.

[nomar33]

I believe they will get what was spent recruiting the athletes that went to JMU my guess is $42680.00

[petagay77]

Brady still paying for Marist/Martin's lack of early success ...

www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20120502/NEWS01/305020012/Martin-testifies-Marist-case-against-former-basketball-coach?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|PoughkeepsieJournal.com|p

[nomar33]

if you still have access to the Free articles - please copy and post

[igotyouback]

hear you go nomar

When men’s basketball head coach Chuck Martin took over the program, he found little in the way of information to recruit a team after former head coach Matt Brady left the college.

Martin and Marist College Athletic Director Tim Murray wrapped up their testimony Tuesday, and attorneys for the school today will continue to present their case against former head coach Matt Brady in New York state Supreme Court in the City of Poughkeepsie.

Brady left Marist in March 2008 after signing a contract extension with the Town of Poughkeepsie school less than a year earlier, and Marist contends the coach violated his contract by allegedly maintaining contact with high school players he recruited for the Red Foxes after his departure south. Four of those recruits – Julius Wells, Andrey Semenov, Trevon Flores and Devon Moore – went on to play for Brady at JMU.

Marist alleges Brady did not leave files on 17 recruits when he left for his new job, which it says would be a breach of his contract, leaving the Red Foxes at a competitive disadvantage while trying to fill out a roster for the 2008-09 season.

Under direct examination Tuesday, Martin said following his previous stints as an assistant coach at several colleges, he took copies of “recruiting files” – information ranging from a prospective student-athlete’s address and contact numbers, to the names of his parents and girlfriends – but left the originals for his incoming replacement.

On his first day as Marist head coach in April 2008, Martin said he tried to find those records, presumably gathered by Brady and his assistants, but the search was fruitless.

“I didn’t find much, in terms of the files,” Martin said.

“Did you find anything?” asked attorney John Hannigan, representing Marist.

“I did not,” Martin said, later adding that without those files, “it certainly made it challenging” to field a team for the following school year.

Martin said such files would have helped him contact the recruits, get a foot in the door with them and help persuade them to attend and play for Marist.

When men’s basketball head coach Chuck Martin took over the program, he found little in the way of information to recruit a team after former head coach Matt Brady left the college.

Martin and Marist College Athletic Director Tim Murray wrapped up their testimony Tuesday, and attorneys for the school today will continue to present their case against former head coach Matt Brady in New York state Supreme Court in the City of Poughkeepsie.

Brady left Marist in March 2008 after signing a contract extension with the Town of Poughkeepsie school less than a year earlier, and Marist contends the coach violated his contract by allegedly maintaining contact with high school players he recruited for the Red Foxes after his departure south. Four of those recruits – Julius Wells, Andrey Semenov, Trevon Flores and Devon Moore – went on to play for Brady at JMU.

Marist alleges Brady did not leave files on 17 recruits when he left for his new job, which it says would be a breach of his contract, leaving the Red Foxes at a competitive disadvantage while trying to fill out a roster for the 2008-09 season.

Under direct examination Tuesday, Martin said following his previous stints as an assistant coach at several colleges, he took copies of “recruiting files” – information ranging from a prospective student-athlete’s address and contact numbers, to the names of his parents and girlfriends – but left the originals for his incoming replacement.

On his first day as Marist head coach in April 2008, Martin said he tried to find those records, presumably gathered by Brady and his assistants, but the search was fruitless.

“I didn’t find much, in terms of the files,” Martin said.

“Did you find anything?” asked attorney John Hannigan, representing Marist.

“I did not,” Martin said, later adding that without those files, “it certainly made it challenging” to field a team for the following school year.

Martin said such files would have helped him contact the recruits, get a foot in the door with them and help persuade them to attend and play for Marist.

[nomar33]

James Madison University officials say they had no knowledge when they hired coach Matt Brady of a contract between him and Marist College or that basketball players he brought with him were Marist recruits.

Because your new coach was and is a liar

James Madison University officials testified Wednesday in the trial that continues this morning bwteen Brady and Marist College over the alleged breach of contract between the former head basketball coach and the college. Marist contends Brady violated his contract by maintaining contact with high school players that he recruited for the Red Foxes after leaving the school in March 2008 for James Madison University.

Four of those recruits — Julius Wells, Andrey Semenov, Trevon Flores, Devon Moore — went on to play for Brady at JMU.

The university also alleges Brady didn’t inform JMU of the recruiting restrictions and Marist Athletic Director Tim Murray never terminated the coach’s contract.

Jeff Bourne, the athletic director for JMU, said he was not aware Moore, Semenov and Flores were Marist recruits upon their official visits to JMU from April 25 to April 27, 2008. Bourne also said at the time of the visits he didn’t know there was a clause in Brady’s contract that prohibited him from contacting the student-athletes.

“When you offered him a job, you didn’t know about the clauses in his contract?” asked attorney John Hannigan, representing Marist.

Bourne replied that he had not.

Bourne said he didn’t see the contract until the end of April 2008 and he never received an arrangement between the coach and school to terminate the deal.

Even after you realized that Brady wasn't honest with you - why did you ignore Marist's efforts to resolve the issue earlier? Scumbag also

“So Matt Brady never submitted an agreement between he and Marist?” Hannigan asked.

“No,” replied Bourne.

“(If you would’ve) seen the contract and knew about the recruiting restrictions, would you have hired him?” Hannigan asked.

“We would have if there had been a release between Marist and Brady,” Bourne said.

Corey Stitzel, former assistant basketball coach at Marist and JMU, testified he and Brady discussed the Marist recruits while working for JMU, but he was not aware of the recruiting restrictions in Brady’s contract.

Brady’s attorney Richard DuVall questioned Stitzel about a memo he sent to Brady. In the memo, Stitzel refers to an informal exit interview between Stitzel and Murray, in which the athletic director is alleged to have said Brady’s recruits wouldn’t attend Marist.

“He started the conversation by saying the two kids that were verbally committed to Marist were gone and he couldn’t stop it,” the document read, referring to Semenov and Flores.

Stitzel said he and Murray never discussed the contract during the exit interview.

Robert O’Driscoll, the associate head coach under Brady, testified it was commonplace for recruits to follow a coach to a different school and Murray acknowledged the students wouldn’t come to Marist.

O’Driscoll said he applied for the head coaching position at Marist, even though the school was losing its prized recruits. “Student-athletes should have the right to play for coach Brady,” said O’Driscoll.

Now i agree that student athletes should have the right to follow a coach - that is 90% why they chose the school BUT there was a written clause saying the coach couldn't contact them (if had issue with clause should have covered it BEFORE signing it) so then the coach shouldn't have contacted them!!!

[igotyouback]

Nomar,

Did you know that Brady took all the information and CM had nothing that he need get the school on track and because of this he had to start from square one. Also do you think with all this coming all this program should be better than it is now.

One last question did Dan after taking the job understand that this was going to be a up hill battle and backed out because I am sure that Marist could of upped the pay.

[reddy]

refresh my memory -- how long was it from the time that Brady announced that he was leaving until Martin was hired? My point is shouldn't Murray have reached out to the recruits in the interim? According to the article, he didn't do so.

[nomar33]

Yes I did know that Brady took everything and left the cupboard dry - which is why i was happy at the time with getting Hall and Vouyoukas (who had an offer from Davidson but academics kept it from happening - we didn't know at the time he was a stiff), but that was year 1 (they won 10 games), where you start losing me is year 3 - he had all his guys there in year two (guys he had plenty of time to evaluate and decide if they where right for his system no one rushed him here) Rusin, Johnson, Price, Alexis, and Prescott that was our fab five (we thought) so we should have had a much better year three then we did - and we have lost 3/5th of that incoming recruiting class, so year 3 i gave him no credit and last year i think i was fairly clear that outside of Loyola (and maybe Columbia) we beat no one that was any good (i think if those guys had all stayed we would have had same record - i think Lewis will be our best player since Jordan but Prescott as a Jr would have been comparable) No i said it before this is the year he needs to convince me - need to beat teams with RPIs better then 175 not worse then 280+, i need 20 wins, and i need top 4 in MAAC anything less is complete failure lol - long winded answer but yes i knew but year two was such a failure not in terms of win losses but personnel

[nomar33]

better article -

Coach: We Knew
Brady Case Continues With Testimony On Contract
Posted: May 3, 2012
By MATTHEW STOSS
HARRISONBURG — One of James Madison’s assistant basketball coaches said Wednesday that Matt Brady recruited players to JMU that he had pursued at his previous college — Marist — despite a clause in Brady’s contract that prohibited him from doing so.

Rob O’Driscoll was one of three current or former Madison employees, including athletic director Jeff Bourne, to testify Wednesday in Marist’s breach-of-contract lawsuit against Brady in New York State Supreme Court in Poughkeepsie.

O’Driscoll said he and Brady, formerly the head coach at Marist, continued to recruit Trevon Flores, Devon Moore, Andrey Semenov and Julius Wells at JMU even though Brady’s contract stipulated that he could not recruit players to his new school that he had tried to lure to the Red Foxes — the reason Marist is suing Brady for $425,000 four years after he left to become the Dukes’ head coach.

O’Driscoll said he had read Brady’s contract and knew about the clause, according to the court transcript of Wednesday’s session.

“And when you got down to JMU, and you and your other assistants and Matt Brady continued to pursue those four recruits to come to JMU, right?” asked John Hannigan, an attorney for Marist.

Said O’Driscoll: “Yes, we did.”

That admission could be a key in deciding the case, which is being tried in front of a jury in Marist’s hometown. But O’Driscoll also said Marist athletic director Tim Murray indicated that he knew those four players would not want to play for the Red Foxes because Brady was no longer the coach.

“Did Tim Murray say anything to you, either in that discussion or any other time, about his belief about Marist’s ability to land prospective recruits?” Brady’s attorney, Richard DuVall, asked.

O’Driscoll said: “He understood that all the players that we were recruiting, that he understands how the business was, and they’re not going to come to Marist now that Coach Brady is no longer the head coach.”

A subplot in the case is whether players should have the freedom to choose schools, regardless of whether a coach agrees to a contract limiting their choices.

O’Driscoll said he believes players should be permitted to pick schools based on coaches.

“I think a student-athlete should be able to choose a college based on where he wants to go to school,” O’Driscoll said. “And if they wanted to come to play for Coach Brady and Coach Brady was no longer there, they should have the right to go to play for Coach Brady wherever he is.

“It is similar to if a cello player wants to go to a great teacher at a certain school and she moves to a different school, the cello player is not going to play for or go to that teacher, they want to go to the teacher that they wanted to earn their tutelage in.”

Corey Stitzel — a former Marist and JMU assistant under Brady (he was let go in March after a 12-20 season that put Brady in danger of losing his job) — also said he had conversations with Brady about continuing to recruit those four players.

“Did you and Coach Brady, early on, after getting to JMU talk about recruiting those players that we have been talking about here?” Hannigan asked.

“Yes,” Stitzel said.

Hannigan went on to ask, “Based on those conversations with your head coach, did you go about furthering the recruitment of those players to go to JMU?”

Stitzel again answered, “Yes.”

Stitzel, though, said Brady had never told him about the clause that prohibited Brady from recruiting players deemed to be Marist recruits.

One JMU source has suggested there might be a fine line between whether Brady and his staff actively recruited the Marist recruits or whether the recruits reached out to Madison.

Stitzel said Moore’s father made the initial contact after Stitzel had gone to JMU.

“He reached out to me first,” Stitzel said.

He also said Flores’ stepfather contacted him.

“Now, let’s take Trevon Flores,” DuVall said. “After you were at JMU did Mr. Flores or someone on his behalf reach out to you or did you call Flores or someone for him?”

Said Stitzel: “His stepfather reached out to me.”

While O’Driscoll acknowledged that he and Brady continued to recruit Flores, Moore, Semenov and Wells despite the clause, Bourne said he didn’t know those players were Marist recruits — at least initially.

Bourne said Brady never told him about the clause in a job interview in Atlanta “on or about March 12” in which Brady provided Bourne with a packet that included information about “himself and his background.”

A paragraph in the packet about the “infusion of top-level talent” — which Bourne was asked to read out loud in the Poughkeepsie courtroom — mentioned “three players” Brady would bring to Madison who “would be able to contribute to JMU’s success immediately and also keep the program at a high level all four years they are here. We would continue to bring in high-level talent that will compete for … All-CAA and Player of the Year honors.”

Bourne said he offered Brady the JMU job around March 25 or 26 but that he did not see Brady’s Marist contract before hiring him.

“I saw the contract at the end of April,” Bourne said. “Right at very end of April.”

Bourne said he didn’t ask to see the contract before hiring Brady.

“Prior to the day you offered him the job,” Hannigan asked, “did he tell you, or to your knowledge any other administrator at JMU at any time, about the clause in his contract prohibiting him from recruiting the Marist recruits and offering them scholarships?”

“No,” Bourne replied.

Bourne said, however, that Murray had told him about the clause.

“So when you offered him the job, you didn’t know about the clause in his Marist contract?” Hannigan asked.

Bourne replied: “I had been told by his boss, Tim Murray, that there were clauses in his contract to that effect, but I had not seen an actual copy of the contract.”

Another question concerned the date Brady began offering scholarships to the former Marist recruits and whether Madison knew about the clause at that time. The final signature on Moore’s scholarship was dated May 15, apparently about two weeks after Bourne saw the contract.

“And when this scholarship was offered by JMU, did you know about the terms of Matt Brady’s contract with Marist that he was not allowed to offer scholarships to these students?” Hannigan asked.

Replied Bourne: “Looking at the actual date it was signed, it was signed sometime in the early part of May, and we were familiar that there were clauses in his contract, but we had not yet made a decision to grant aid.”

Marist also sued JMU in the breach-of-contract case, but Madison settled last week by agreeing to pay Marist $100,000.

Brady’s portion of the trial resumes today.

[nomar33]

Attorneys for both Marist College and its former men’s head basketball coach, Matt Brady, are to begin summations this morning, a day after Brady concluded his testimony in the school’s New York state Supreme Court civil case against him.

Marist contends after Brady signed a contract extension with the school in the summer of 2007, he left Poughkeepsie for James Madison University less than a year later and continued contact with four players he had recruited to come to Marist, a breach of his contract. Those four players went on to play for him at James Madison.

Under cross-examination by attorney John Hannigan, Brady read aloud a clause from his contract with Marist that forbade him from offering a scholarship to any player he had recruited for the Red Foxes if he left the school for another coaching job.

Brady later said it was his assistant coaches who continued to recruit Julius Wells, Trevon Flores and Andrey Semenov, as well as Devon Moore who had signed a binding National Letter of Intent to attend Marist, even after he began working for James Madison.

“If they recruited those four players,” Hannigan asked, “you were responsible for that, right?”

“Ultimately, I’m responsible for everything my assistants do,” replied Brady, who also said he eventually signed scholarship offers for each player.

Trying to throw blame elsewhere what an ass hole, reminds me of the scene in A Few Good Men - he told us to give a code red.... Jessip said to give the code red we did nothing wrong ... what did we do wrong? Joke

Throughout the day, Marist’s attorneys referenced a packet of papers Brady delivered to Parker Executive Search, the Atlanta-based headhunter James Madison employed, during his 2008 interview with the Dukes.

Brady read from that packet Monday, including a line in which he boasted about his 2008-09 recruiting class to James Madison officials — assistant coach Corey Stitzel, Brady read, was heavily involved with “our incoming class, a class that will be coming to James Madison” — and Marist attorneys also presented a calendar from the packet, which contained the dates on which Moore, Flores and Semenov, by name, made official visits to Marist.

“our incoming class, a class that will be coming to James Madison” CASE CLOSED

Several times during his testimony, Brady said it was assistant coach Rob O’Driscoll who compiled the packet Brady presented to James Madison.

Brady said the packet, and the information contained within it, was more of a pitch meant to sell James Madison on him — he called it “pie in the sky” and “salesmanship” — and just “all part of recruiting.”

He said he wasn’t implying Moore, Flores and Semenov, whom he had recruited to come to Marist, would follow him south.

“I have no idea who was going to be coming to me to (James Madison),” Brady said.

Marist’s contract with Brady included clauses that either side could amend the pact — say, for example, if one party wanted to shorten the terms — but such revisions had to be made in writing.

Brady said he never got written permission to leave Marist before the contract expired, and he said he never received permission — written or otherwise — to continue to recruit Semenov, Moore and Flores.

The defense’s final witness, Moore, followed Brady on the stand and said schools like Western Kentucky, Michigan and Florida State had recruited him when he played for Northland High School in Columbus, Ohio.

Moore, who will play his final season for James Madison next season, said he took an official visit to Marist but didn’t plan on attending the school, adding he contacted Stitzel when Brady left Marist and he has had a “great experience” at James Madison.

Moore concluded his testimony by calling Brady a “great coach” whom he trusts.