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No ruling issued on NCAA motion
Judge opens thousands of pages of documents
Friday, June 24, 2005
By ALAN CLEMONS
Times Sports Staff aclemons@htimes.com

TUSCALOOSA - A circuit court judge agreed to open thousands of pages of documents to the public Thursday before holding a hearing on the NCAA's motion for summary judgment in its $60 million defamation defense against two former University of Alabama football coaches.

Tuscaloosa County Circuit Judge Steve Wilson unsealed the NCAA's summary judgment request, more than 1,300 pages long, as well as the 1,400-page response from attorneys representing former coaches Ronnie Cottrell and Ivy Williams. Those and other documents include depositions and submissions of evidence, including several letters from University of Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer to former Southeastern Conference commissioner Roy Kramer.

After the four-hour hearing Wilson did not issue a ruling. He could throw out some or all of the lawsuit's charges against the NCAA. He said because of the complexity of the charges and rebuttals, a ruling could come as late as the morning of the scheduled July 11 trial date here.

Cottrell and Williams claim defamation of character and harm to their careers. Cottrell earlier this year was hired as head coach at Carroll High of Ozark. Williams is coaching at Savannah State in southeast Georgia.

Their lead attorney, Tommy Gallion of Montgomery, has woven a tapestry of conspiracy charges, pointing to NCAA investigator Richard Johanningmeier, Kramer, Fulmer and former Birmingham-based recruiting analyst Tom Culpepper. NCAA officials repeatedly refuted the charges and termed the conspiracy plot as an "interesting story" and "entertaining theory."

To prove defamation, NCAA attorney Robert Rutherford argued, Cottrell and Williams would have to show they are victims of actual malice because of their positions as public figures. He argued their positions as Alabama football coaches did indeed make them well-known as high-profile coaches and no evidence supports any conspiracy. Public figures have a higher burden of proof to prove in defamation claims, and each side cited numerous prior cases supporting their arguments.

Rutherford also disputed claims that conversations between Culpepper and Fulmer, and with other people, were used specifically in the NCAA's investigation of Alabama's self-reported violations by Cottrell.

"There is no evidence the NCAA worked hand-in-hand. ... It's just made up," Rutherford said. "The plaintiffs admitted they committed rules violations, which are undisputed. People who plead guilty to violations cannot complain about the investigation of those violations."

Gallion and fellow lawyers Michael Rediker and Delaine Mountain each took aim at specific points to try to sway the judge to give the case to a jury. They pointed to Fulmer's letters to Kramer, Kramer's admission in a deposition he should have notified Alabama officials earlier the NCAA was looking into alleged violations, Culpepper's meeting and conversations with Fulmer at a Tennessee board of trustees member's house in Chattanooga and other incidents he says support his conspiracy theory.

"I know this sounds like a soap opera," Gallion said, "but quite honestly it is. My clients' careers have been destroyed. They have been lied about and maligned."

Memos fuel theory

Fulmer has denied being part of any conspiracy with SEC or NCAA officials. Although documents presented Thursday do not point to anything specific in that regard, they do fuel longstanding claims that Kramer and the SEC did not act soon enough to let Alabama know the NCAA was looking into allegations against it.

Two of Fulmer's six correspondences to Kramer were shown during the hearing. In them, Fulmer complains as early as April 1998 to Kramer about what he believed were illegal recruiting tactics involving Alabama recruits Michael Myers, Dwayne Rudd, Kendal Moorehead, Santonio Beard, Eric Locke, Rod Rutledge, Deshea Townsend, Kenny Smith, Steve Harris and Curtis Alexander and David Payne.

Fulmer also railed against convicted felon and disassociated Alabama booster Logan Young of Memphis. Young earlier this year was convicted on federal bribery charges for paying Lynn Lang, the high school coach of lineman Albert Means, to get him to sign with Alabama. Young has been sentenced to six months in prison.

In a memo dated April 13, 1998, Fulmer wrote:

?Logan Young has been 'dealing' with Alabama recruiting since the days of Coach Bryant. It is common knowledge around the Conference that he is illegally paying either the player, the parents or the coach of selected great athletes - usually defensive linemen that are black and poor. He has typically operated mostly in Mississippi and North Alabama, but recently has been involved with kids and a coach from Memphis and Murfreesboro, Tennessee. He is very wealthy and often drinks a lot and brags about his boys he gets to go to Alabama."

Fulmer claimed Young "bought Michael Myers" with a new truck and that Jerome Woods, "currently an NFL player from that school, said 'Logan came through for the Mooreheads with a new house.' "

?n the same letter, Fulmer states that then-Ole Miss coach Tommy Tuberville "called his hand on a kid in Mississippi that started for Ole Miss as a Freshman OL. He and Tuberville are friends through (Larry) Lacewell, but Tuberville got mad. He won't talk about Logan because he wants the Alabama job. Logan likes Tuberville and will let Tommy 'keep a few.' "

Fulmer added: "The SEC should investigate - start with Tuberville, Sherrill and Bowden. Just ask around Memphis about him (Young) and surely there are some tracks."

At the time Tuberville coached at Ole Miss, Jackie Sherrill was at Mississippi State and Terry Bowden was at Auburn. Since then, Sherrill and Bowden have left and Tuberville is head coach at Auburn.

?n a separate memo dated July 26, 1999, former FBI investigator Bill Sievers of Memphis - hired by then SEC commissioner Kramer - revealed that Memphis Trezevant High coach Lynn Lang had solicited money from Tennessee assistant Pat Washington in an attempt to get Albert Means to sign with the Vols.

Sievers wrote to Kramer: "Coach Lang's actions amount to soliciting a bribe and extortion. We have the opportunity to have Washington tape record his conversation and have law enforcement authorities prosecute Lang. While this may sound harsh, I believe it will put a stop to high school coaches soliciting money from SEC coaches and send a strong message to others."

That paragraph, Gallion said, lends support to his claim the SEC and Fulmer, and later the NCAA with Culpepper's assistance, worked together to harm his clients. Culpepper attorney John Scott sternly rebuffed the charges, reiterating the standard for actual malice has not been met and no evidence has been presented to support any conspiracy claims.

"This court is going to be called upon to separate the wheat from the chaff," Scott said. He added the plaintiffs' case is "opinion, hyperbole and conclusion."

Another round of hearings is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. today, including the NCAA's motion to compel settlement discussions with Cottrell and Williams. Gallion said to his knowledge, no settlement talks have occurred.

"Roy Adams is a queer who will associate ...

... with anyone that hangs around him ... " - Fulmer

A quote from one of Phil's faxes to Roy Kramer --- part of the public court file released.

Roy Adams = " Tenn Stud" ----loudmouth on TN message boards.

The Logan Youngs, and Roy Adams of the college football world make me want to vomit. It is long past time to toss out the trash.

This SEC house cleaning that has been going on the past 5 -10 years was BADLY needed.

I am sure fellow SEC coaches could not trust Fat Phil as far as they could throw him, but I feel him outing these people was needed. There is no reason for the Logan Young's of college athletics be allowed to continue to operate.

Roy - Tn Stud with puke on his shirt.

Very Studly, Roy. Throw me something you fagot.

I find it ironic that Phil called someone a queer. Afterall, Phil was in bed with Roy Kramer for many years.

CECIL HURT: Documents support notion of 'conspiracy’
June 24, 2005

For everyone who ever wondered why newspapers like The Tuscaloosa News fight so hard for documents to see the light of day…

The two sides in the upcoming Ronnie Cottrell-Ivy Williams suit against the NCAA and others argued for and against summary judgment in the case in Judge Steve Wilson’s courtroom on Thursday. The lawyers for both sides were eloquent, and their arguments were learned. We heard all about “limited-purpose public figures" and “Rule 56 affidavits."

And yet, not one of the lengthy arguments on the various legal points -- some salient, some arcane -- packed anything approaching the visceral impact, the sheer gut-level jolt, that one line in one document that was made public contained.

“We have the opportunity to have [Pat] Washington tape record his conversations [with Lynn Lang] and have law enforcement authorities prosecute Lang."

That was the suggestion made to the SEC Commissioner, Roy Kramer, from the league’s private investigator, Bill Seivers, describing how a sting operation could be set up in the Albert Means case.

This memo didn’t come after February 2000, when Means signed with Alabama. It wasn’t information that might have prevented Means from “enrolling" at Alabama.

The memo was dated July 26, 1999 -- more than six months before Means signed. It doesn’t just confirm that the SEC office and the University of Tennessee were “in the know" about Lang (for, if Tennessee didn’t know, how could Washington offer to tape-record his conversations with Lynn Lang.) It proves, beyond any lawyer’s rhetoric, that a “sting," or, in Tommy Gallion’s words, a “conspiracy" was being discussed. That would be frightening even if it was only the SEC and the University of Tennessee involved. Add Seivers’ assurances that the SEC “could have law enforcement authorities prosecute Lang," and it grows downright chilling.

There were other documents. There was an even earlier memo from May of 1998, between Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer and Kramer. It outlined a series of Logan Young’s alleged misdeeds and directed Kramer to various individuals ranging from Duke Clement to Tommy Tuberville who could “help." And why did Fulmer need help? The integrity of the game? Hardly.

“I can’t afford to let another recruiting season go by and they [Alabama] sign two more players from my state," Fulmer tells Kramer in the “For Your Eyes Only" memo.

Again, this wasn’t some he-said, she-said hearsay. This is what Fulmer said directly to Kramer, in document form.

In all, there are 3,000 pages worth of documents that Judge Wilson has found, correctly, to be of compelling public interest. The News’ policy throughout the long NCAA case has been to publish as much as we can and as quickly as we can, and while I didn’t have a chance to talk with the publisher before writing this column, I believe that will continue to be the case.

Judge Wilson’s rulings on the motions presented Thursday will not be made immediately, perhaps not until just before the July 11 trial date. But there will be interesting reading until then.

Not every one of the 3,000 pages will be as compelling as the ones that made their way into the courtroom on Thursday afternoon. Some, however, will be blockbusters. They will reveal character or motive or, like these two memos discussed above, they will cast events in an entirely new light, at least in terms of what people knew and when they knew it.

Not every document will be flattering to the University of Alabama football program, or its boosters, or to the plaintiffs, Cottrell and Williams. Some will confirm long-held suspicions about the case, and others may reshape opinions in entirely.

And there will be some that will simply make a reasonable person sit back, stunned, and say “darn," or something a little more powerful than darn.

That’s what happened on Thursday -- and what will probably happen again.

Cecil Hurt is sports editor of The Tuscaloosa News. Reach him at cecil.hurt@tuscaloosanews.com or at (205) 722-0225.

http://www.tidesports.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050624/NEWS/506240368/1067

How about this article...

June 28, 2005


SPORTS WRITER
'Team Cottrell's' house of cards is short on aces

By Josh Moon
Montgomery Advertiser


For months now, the Alabama sports world has been overwhelmed by talk of this unbelievable conspiracy that brought down the Alabama football program.
We've heard all about the involvement of Tennessee head coach Phillip Fulmer. We've heard ad nauseam about the crooked NCAA and SEC and the underhanded techniques of NCAA investigator Rich Johanningmeier.

We've listened to Montgomery attorney Tommy Gallion promise to reveal things so shocking they would prove without a shadow of a doubt that the Crimson Tide football program was the innocent victim of a vicious conspiracy and that former coaches Ronnie Cottrell and Ivy Williams were unduly harmed in the process.

All that talk is over now.

Last Thursday, both sides in this $60 million lawsuit put their cards on the table.

"Team Cottrell" was holding very few aces.

In fact, it seems as though they had attempted one of the greatest bluffs in legal history.

After all the promises and threats, Gallion laid out this argument -- SEC and NCAA officials failed to prevent Alabama coaches and boosters from cheating.

No matter how you look at all this stuff -- and trust me, with 2,500-plus pages of evidence, there's plenty to look at -- it all comes back to that simple, yet questionable argument.

Gallion and his team found undeniable proof that then-SEC commissioner Roy Kramer knew that Memphis, Tenn., high school coach Lynn Lang was shopping star defensive lineman Albert Means to various college coaches long before Crimson Tide booster Logan Young's payments to Lang sent Means to Alabama.

Yet Kramer never warned Alabama officials of any of this.

Kramer never got on the phone with Crimson Tide athletic officials and said, "Hey, you know that crooked booster you've got in Memphis? Make sure that guy doesn't pay Lynn Lang for Albert Means."

It's sad, really.

With all the talk and all of the depositions, I was expecting to see evidence that would truly astound me. Instead, I saw evidence that Kramer, Fulmer and the NCAA didn't stop the Alabama coaches and their rogue booster from hanging themselves.

That's not a conspiracy. It's good work.

I mean, look at what it led to: Young is facing a prison sentence and has been disassociated from the university, and a couple of crooked Memphis high school coaches are out of jobs.

That's what the NCAA is supposed to do. It's supposed to weed out the corrupt boosters and coaches and punish the schools that benefited from their actions.

That's what happened in this case.

Does it really matter how it got done?

Who cares if Fulmer bypassed the Alabama coaches and went straight to Kramer with his complaints? He thought he was being cheated. He didn't think he would get satisfactory results by calling the Tide coaches. He wanted it stopped and he took what he thought was the quickest and most effective route.

For that, Fulmer has been vilified in this state.

Had this situation been reversed and Alabama coaches been the ones shipping out those faxes to Kramer, can anyone honestly say that they wouldn't have felt it was the right thing to do?

Of course not. There would've been many laughs when the penalties were handed down at UT and many slaps on the back for the Alabama coach responsible.

The fact that there's now this massive uproar among the Alabama faithful points to one thing -- Crimson Tide fans, because they so much want to believe their university was wronged, have bought into the Gallion argument on a grand scale.

Trouble is, it's rather clear now that they've all been suckered.

It's easy to understand how that could happen. Alabama fans are some of the most loyal, most devoted and most passionate fans in college football. They're proud of their program and the great tradition behind it.

So when there was an option that wouldn't require them to believe that their coaches and boosters were involved in rules violations, they jumped on it. And Gallion, like any good attorney, continued feeding them reasons to keep the faith.

You've got to give him credit.

Gallion stirred up one of the most intense media storms in the history of this state and worked Alabama fans into a frenzy over this. Every other day, he was on the Paul Finebaum Radio Network, tossing out allegations and making claims.

He got the attention of newspapers across the country. ESPN even showed up to do a story.

It all worked so well ... until Thursday, when the talking stopped.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Josh Moon, a sports writer for the Advertiser, can be reached by phone at (334) 240-0191 or by e-mail at jmoon@gannett.com.





http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/NEWSV5/storyV528joshcolwj.htm

TLDR

Ya gonna hafta splan dat one......Remember I'm from Tn.