Tarkanian, NCAA finally reach agreement

Tarkanian, branded an outlaw basketball coach the past two decades, will receive $2.5 million from the NCAA on today. Sources familiar with the case said he will also receive a conciliatory statement from the organization.

Settlement of the 7-year-old suit was reached one month before it was to go on trial here, the city where he had coached for almost 20 years. Tarkanian had contended the NCAA targeted his teams and made up evidence to try to run him out of coaching.

"They can never, ever, make up for all the pain and agony they caused me," Tarkanian said yesterday, speaking by phone from Fresno, Calif., where he coaches the Fresno State team.

"All I can say is that for 25 years they beat the hell out of me."

Tarkanian's wife, Lois, confirmed the settlement figure yesterday, saying it amounted to a win for the oft-beleaguered coach.

"We felt it was an amount that showed we had victory in this case," she said.

While not admitting liability, the statement from the NCAA will say the organization regrets the dispute, which began 26 years ago when Tarkanian was still coaching at Long Beach State, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The NCAA declined comment on the settlement, saying executive director Cedric Dempsey would talk about it Thursday.

Tarkanian's attorney, Terry Giles, said he was preparing to go to trial May 18 when he was approached about a settlement a few weeks ago by the NCAA.

Giles said testimony from former players, officials and lawyers would have shown that, except for one minor infraction, the NCAA had no evidence to back up probations given to basketball programs at Long Beach and UNLV.

"We felt very confident about our case for seven years," Giles said. "I told Jerry and Lois that the day we were in the courtroom picking a jury was the day we were beginning to win the case."

Tarkanian, who led Fresno State to the NIT semifinals last week, sued the NCAA after he was forced to resign from UNLV in 1992. The suit claimed the agency singled him out while he was at UNLV from 1973 to 1992. During that time the university was penalized three different times by the NCAA.

It was the second suit Tarkanian had filed against the NCAA. The first one ended when a divided Supreme Court ruled in 1988 that Tarkanian could not sue because the athletic body acted as a private organization and not with government authority.

"I'm just glad it's over with," Tarkanian said. "You can't fight an organization that big and that strong and hope to survive. But I knew I would never give up."

Tarkanian said the statement to be released today by the NCAA would serve as some vindication for his claims that he was a target of the organization's enforcement division.

"They're going to admit they made some mistakes, I guess," he said.

Sources said the NCAA statement, in addition to expressing regret over the long battle, will also say the agency now has more understanding of Tarkanian's position and that the case has changed the enforcement process for the better.

It will also say the NCAA wants to go forward with a clean slate, thinks Tarkanian is an excellent basketball coach and wants the wounds to heal.

The NCAA fought the Tarkanian suit from its inception, trying unsuccessfully to get it moved out of Las Vegas, where NCAA attorneys said jurors would be biased on Tarkanian's behalf.

Tarkanian's fight with the NCAA first reached the courts after the UNLV program was put on two years' probation in 1977 for what the NCAA termed "questionable recruiting practices."

The NCAA ordered UNLV to suspend Tarkanian for two years at the time, but Tarkanian obtained a court order blocking the action. Tarkanian then sued the NCAA, beginning litigation that ended when the Supreme Court threw out the case.

Tarkanian's last season at UNLV also ended under an NCAA cloud when UNLV was banned from postseason play and live television appearances because of alleged rules violations.

04-02-98