Answer On the O'Leary 1.5 million

T

techfowl

Jolly Good Fellow
Joined
Aug 25, 2003
Messages
1,745
Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

The money is gone.

Technically Notre Dame owes us the cash if anybody does. They assumed that liability when they hired GO. The fact that GO quit THEM doesn't change the fact that ND is the entity that owes us the cash. GO may owe them the 1.5 after they pay us - - but HE does not owe us 1.5.

One transaction happened - then the other happened. It's not connect the dots. The liability for our money lies with Notre Dame. A seperate suit could be filed by Notre Dame against O'Leary if they paid us. We can not go after GO for the money. ND assumed that liability when they hired him.

How long has it been and you guys are beating this dead horse into the gound.

If we haven't made an attempt to get that money by now, we will never see that money.

I suspect it's worth 1.5 to the GTAA to allow the entire sequence of events that transpired to remain in the past. They do not want to reexplore that black eye again.

It's over. Complaining doesn't help anything. Quit already.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

How do you know they assumed the liability when they hired him? He is the one who signed the contract with GT. Where has his philosophy about personal responsibility gone? Regardless, I do not believe, unless contractually stated otherwise, that you assume someone else's debts when you hire them.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

That's the way it's done in football.

That's the way it is with any buy out. That's what a buy out is.

Assuming all of someone's debt and wanting someone as an employee so bad that you are willing to pay his or her contract off to get them are two different things.

This is basic Business Law.

The hiring facility asumes the liability of the one they hired. Period. Who would ever leave otherwise?

Without this - each school could only hire coaches with no contractual obligations left - or only hire assistants - who have no rights in the world.

Bill Lewis and Bill O'Brien would be the hottest things going.

Do you really think every coach that's hired away from another program wants to go to the next place so bad that they just pay the rest of the contract out of their own pocket?

Do you think that every coach that's hired has no years left on his contract?

Notre Dame assumed GO's liability. I promise.

Alabama assumed Price's from Washington State. Clemson assumed Bowden's from Tulane. And so on and so on.

The reason UGA put such a huge buy out in Richt's clause was not so Richt could not afford to leave. It was so another school could not afford the buy out to get him.

If Richt wants to quit coaching, he will not owe a zillion dollars. If he goes to another school to coach he will owe a zillion dollars. If he does do so, it will be because said school thinks it's worth it to pay off the buy out.

The penalty is not so a coach can't retire. The penalty is so the coach can't switch allegiances and coach against the original school without penalty.

The coach is responsible for the buy out - but when another school hires the coach, part of the deal is covering the buy out.

Let's say GO earned (hypothetically) 2 million a year at Notre Dame and he owes us 1.5. So he gets 1 million after taxes the first year and has enough to pay us part of what he owes and lives off savings for another year and then, and then, and then?

I'll ask again. Why would any coach leave any school under those circumstances? They don't.

The hiring school assumes that liability.

i.e. The hiring school basically "buys" the right to hire another school's coach by paying the first school what the coach owes. They buy out the rest of his contract. And then they must also pay the coach what he wants as well.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

As you say, basic business law. My assumptions then would be as follows:

1) O'Leary owed GT if he leaves to take another job.

2) ND agreed to pay the buyout for O'Leary. I would bet they have no agreement with GT, it's between them and O'Leary.

3) When O'Leary resigned, ND said you're not our coach so we aren't paying anything.

4) GT's recourse is with O'Leary, who said basically, I don't have another college coaching job so I'm not paying.

Seems to me it's up to GT to sue O'Leary. We can always sue both O'Leary and ND and see what a judge and/or jury decides, but I'm not sure O'Leary can legally shift his responsibility to ND.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

Give it up will ya?

GOL ain't paying us anything
and neither is ND.

Talking about beating a DEAD HORSE!!!!!!!!!
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

Next question then.

I don't think that is the case. But let's assume it is.

What do we accomplish by suing O'Leary for 1.5?

He will not be able to repay it. If he does, it will be by forclosing on his properties and savings to get it.

So now every coach in America can not wait to coach here. They will line up. All the best coaches will want to come coach at the scariest work environment possible.

Because it will be a landmark case, no one will forget for a LONG time.

Better yet - let's dig up old bones and remind the entire sports world what a fiasco we had here for a couple of years. Let's resurface the worst all over again.

Let's remind the parent of every recruit what a circus we had here in that time.

In fact - let's start a whole new distraction and circus for all the new recruits who may have even somehow missed the first one. Let's be the first school to actually sue the guy that pulled us out of the ditch.

The D Coordinator of our 1990 National Championship team and the guy that took us from 1-10 to 3 straight over UGA.

Let's show everybody how "stand up" we are by bringing up this whole mess to the world when we will never see a penny if we do.

So either we never see the money or we look like animals going after the one who got us here and better yet, let's remind everybody of what happened all over again in a LONG drawn out court battle.

And we spend a third of the money we might have recouped on attorney's fees and PR people to cover the mess up before we get the first dime.

So back to my original question. Even if, for sake of argument, GO IS responsible - What do we accomplish by trying to get the money?

I say we leave him with as good a reputation as we can - because we will be linked and associated with this guy for a long time to come. If he looks bad, we do too - vice versa for him. It's not fair, but it's the way it is.

Back to the original post. The money is gone. Complaining accomplishes nothing.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

We did not assume Lewis' buyout from ECU. And obviously by this thread it is not a dead horse, most especially with the enhanced seating and such fiascos and request for increased A/T contributions for less return.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

In addition, UCF's hire may not be as smooth as some think. Did they not suspend, or take some action, against their coach and some players for some academic fraud or something? And then they hire a coach who committed fraud (and I am not saying he should not be given a second chance). I think some folks will have some concerns. Mine continues to be his amnesia about personal responsibility.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

How do you know we assumed no buy out in the Lewis hire?

Did he even have a buy out clause?

If he had one and we didn't pay it, he is the dumbest guy in the history of sports.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

techfowl,

I will defer to law_bee if he chooses to comment, but George O'Leary entered into a contract with Georgia Tech. In that contract, O'Leary could pay Georgia Tech $1.5M to terminate that contract (the Buyout).

Unless there was a subsequent agreement between GT and Notre Dame, there would be no legal basis for Notre Dame to be liable to GT for the buyout. I would think that Notre Dame agreed to pay the $1.5M buyout on behalf of O'Leary as part of his new contract, but this would not make Notre Dame liable to GT.

Now there are couple ways we could have gotten screwed:

1. We might have agreed to accept payment from ND and release O'Leary, but it contained a clause that protected them against fraud / misrepresentation. I don't know why we would enter into such a subsequent agreement except to memoralize the payment and acceptance, as GT's interests were already protected under the original contract, but hey Braine has screwed up other less complicated things.

2. O'Leary's Notre Dame contract might have been voided by the misrepresentations on his resume and O'Leary's buyout was contingent on the Notre Dame contract therefore his GT contract becomes valid. He calls Braine tells him he is coming back to GT. Braine says hell no you are not coming back so they reach a compromise to call it even.

All complete speculation, but I cannot imagine that Notre Dame would liable to GT for anything without a contract between the two parties.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

TexStinger,

Let's agree on one thing.

GO is a hypocrite, a liar, and a jerk.

The guy is a sham artist and I bought it hook, line, and sinker for a long time. I didn't really turn on the guy until all that crap about poor senior leadership in 2000, and blaming Joe Burns - the guy that carried us all year and game - on the Maryland loss.

GO talked about personal accountability and then shifts all blame to a bunch of college kids. I gave up on him well before he quit.

He's also a good coach and because he enforced a "do as I say - not what I do" while letting everybody think it was "do as I say, just like I do" - and it worked here before the fiasco.

The guy will have some problems using that same story again.

On the other hand, he will instill discipline just like he did here, but maybe without the same admiration of the players (some of them) he had here.

So we can agree that GO doesn't live the story he preaches. My argument is a different one altogether.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

techfowl,
At the press conference announcing Lewis' hiring Homer Rice stated emphatically that GT would not pay off the ECU contract. Now what EVIDENCE do you have that ND assumed O'L's liability? And do you think it is right for GT to ask us to pay more for less, while letting O'L skip out on a 1.5 mill debt?
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

JTS,

#2 sounds like a reasonable explanation. You always have good posts.

Maybe I'm right, maybe you're right. You're #2 now looks better than what I originally proposed.

So my original point still stands. We won't ever see the money. We would be fools for many reasons to even try.

TexStinger,

We won't see the money, so how the GTAA handles it from here is a seperate issue. I'm not a Braine fan either.

I don't have a shred of evidence. To me it's common sense.

I sure would not want the GTAA to go after O'Leary and some of the reasons are above. It's not out of compassion for O'Leary I can promise you that.

Now, when I say - "The point is" that means that is the point of my story. Every post in this thread I have maintained one thing, and that is that the money is gone and all this whining is useless.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

So it seems to me that we become, although in a different way, just like the other schools we accuse of not having princples. Unacceptable.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

Originally posted by techfowl:
Next question then.

I don't think that is the case. But let's assume it is.

What do we accomplish by suing O'Leary for 1.5?

He will not be able to repay it. If he does, it will be by forclosing on his properties and savings to get it.

So now every coach in America can not wait to coach here. They will line up. All the best coaches will want to come coach at the scariest work environment possible.

Because it will be a landmark case, no one will forget for a LONG time.

Better yet - let's dig up old bones and remind the entire sports world what a fiasco we had here for a couple of years. Let's resurface the worst all over again.

Let's remind the parent of every recruit what a circus we had here in that time.

In fact - let's start a whole new distraction and circus for all the new recruits who may have even somehow missed the first one. Let's be the first school to actually sue the guy that pulled us out of the ditch.

The D Coordinator of our 1990 National Championship team and the guy that took us from 1-10 to 3 straight over UGA.

Let's show everybody how "stand up" we are by bringing up this whole mess to the world when we will never see a penny if we do.

So either we never see the money or we look like animals going after the one who got us here and better yet, let's remind everybody of what happened all over again in a LONG drawn out court battle.

And we spend a third of the money we might have recouped on attorney's fees and PR people to cover the mess up before we get the first dime.

So back to my original question. Even if, for sake of argument, GO IS responsible - What do we accomplish by trying to get the money?

I say we leave him with as good a reputation as we can - because we will be linked and associated with this guy for a long time to come. If he looks bad, we do too - vice versa for him. It's not fair, but it's the way it is.

Back to the original post. The money is gone. Complaining accomplishes nothing.
Click to expand...
<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Excellent techfowl! I liked that remark about suing the one that pulled us out of the ditch.

I have never complained about the 1.5 million because he rescued our program just as you said PLUS he was the driving force in getting Bobby Dodd Stadium at Grant Field completly rebuilt.

As far as I am concerned he owes us nothing and we owe him our gratitude for a job well done.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

Well, I'd say he owes us the money, I mean he agreed to the contract. But I also don't think we'll see it and see no reason to sue for it. Partly due to what George did for us, but also because if sets a bad precedence IMO. Although if George was as stand up a guy as he likes to think he should be working out some sort of pay-off with Braine. Even if it takes 10 years. It would be the right thing for him to do.

And yes, he did a lot for us. But we did a lot for him too. Who else would have given a career DC a shot at a HC position in D-1? So I think it's about even there.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

Bill Lewis paid East Carolina the buy-out money out of his own pocket. They did not have to sue him to get it. He did it because it was the honorable thing to do.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

Originally posted by techfowl:
The money is gone.

Technically Notre Dame owes us the cash if anybody does. They assumed that liability when they hired GO. The fact that GO quit THEM doesn't change the fact that ND is the entity that owes us the cash. GO may owe them the 1.5 after they pay us - - but HE does not owe us 1.5.

One transaction happened - then the other happened. It's not connect the dots. The liability for our money lies with Notre Dame. A seperate suit could be filed by Notre Dame against O'Leary if they paid us. We can not go after GO for the money. ND assumed that liability when they hired him.

How long has it been and you guys are beating this dead horse into the gound.

If we haven't made an attempt to get that money by now, we will never see that money.

I suspect it's worth 1.5 to the GTAA to allow the entire sequence of events that transpired to remain in the past. They do not want to reexplore that black eye again.

It's over. Complaining doesn't help anything. Quit already.
Click to expand...
<font size="2" face="Arial, Verdana, Sans-Serif">Wrong. The way I understand it, O'Leary is responsible to pay us the money. Problem is GOL does not have 1.5 million to pay us. Apparently after the ND incident, WHILE we were still "searching" for a coach, O'LEary tried to come back to Tech. Tech denied him this, and he later claimed that he was off the hook for the 1.5 million because he was available for the "opening". This is why when Gailey was hired and was specifically asked "when were you hired", Gailey responded "Whenever dave Braine made the offer." So in fact, I think there is some type of resolution being sought, unfortunately, GOL does not think he owes Tech any money anymore. Its all in the hands of the lawyers. ND doesn't owe us anything Techfowl.
 
Re: Answer On the O\'Leary 1.5 million

For whatever reason (and at times I cannot identify why) this issue bugs me about Braine almost as much as Mooregate. While I understand the idea of clemancy for a guy who generally did a good job for Tech, there is also what is to me a stronger issue/rational which is Tech (and the officers of Tech) should enforce the contracts they sign. I don't like a precedent which says that contracts will be selectively enforced or that coaches we hire down the road don't really have to worry about the buy out clause because we aren't going to enforce it anyway.

I don't claim to understand who (OLeary or ND) owes us the money and I really don't care as I am not paid to know that - and I have not spent the last 2 years with this issue on my desk. But to me it seems that Braine should have either sued O'Leary or ND or both - or stated that this is a dead issue and we have agreed not to pursue it because of whatever good reason there is. $1.5 M is a significant amount of money and represents a material issue which should be dealt with - one way or another.

It is also not helpful for Braine to have this hanging out there as a lightning rod for those who are generally unhappy with him anyway.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top