UConn balks at Ollie’s request
Attorney wants to cross-examine university’s witnesses during hearing
A little over a year after Kevin Ollie was fired as UConn’s head coach, the fight for the nearly $11 million he was still owed on his contract looks to have no end in sight.
Ollie’s lawyer, Jacques Parenteau, filed a request in Superior Court in Hartford on Tuesday asking that UConn produce witnesses it has interviewed in the past to be crossexamined during arbitration. According to Parenteau, UConn has balked at the request.
“We have no alternative but to seek an order from the Court that’s necessary to protect Kevin’s Constitutional rights,” Parenteau told Hearst Connecticut Media.
Typically in arbitration cases, according to Parenteau, rules of evidence don’t apply and it is a more laid-back affair. But that doesn’t apply in this case, Parenteau argued, because Ollie was fired for “just cause” by the University and has a Constitutional right to defend himself.
Ollie’s team recently won the right seek depositions
from a number of people who currently live out of state. The witnesses: former UConn and NBA star Ray Allen, former UConn athletic director Warde Manuel, former UConn assistant coaches Ricky Moore and Dwayne Killings, former UConn director of basketball operations Kevin Freeman, former UConn players Terry Larrier, Rodney Purvis, and Sterling Gibbs, former UConn recruit James Akinjo, former UConn player development coach Danny Griffin, former UConn audio/visual coordinator Dave Sevush, trainer Derrek Hamilton,
Chris Wright (stepfather of a recruit), and Rachel Jackson, (guardian of a former player).
Parenteau estimates it could take at least two or three months to secure all of those depositions (videotaped or otherwise) as some may decline to do so and may need to be subpoenaed.
There has been some progress in the case, however. The sides have agreed on an arbitrator: Marcia Greenbaum of Massachusetts.
Ollie was fired by UConn on March 20, 2018, after a 14-18 season — the second sub-.500 season in a row. The school cited “just cause” based on an NCAA investigation into the program, which would enable UConn to dismiss Ollie without paying the money owed on his contract.
The sides has been entangled in a legal fight since. While the process is set to be decided by an arbitrator, Ollie’s side has also been seeking to file a complaint of race discrimination with the Connecticut Commission on Human Right and Opportunities (CHRO) and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
A federal judge dismissed the racial discrimination claim last month, although Ollie’s lawyers have said the team will continued to pursue the claim after the arbitration process is over.