Well, I had nothing better to do last night and decided to read all the depostions....first and foremost this is my opinion..
So I cozied up to a glass of wine and went through each and everyone..so maybe it was jsut about a bottle when I was done...
First I read Garrisons...as you would expect being a litigator in his previous life he has enough experience in being able to handle himself in this type of enviroment...I felt he was very credible and very consistent in his answers....however if I were to be critical he did sound like Rich at times not rmembering dates , locations of meetings ...This is the President of the school...his timelike anyone in charge has his day acounted for by the minute..His planner will surely get called into evidence at some point...The one big flaw he said he really had no bearing on the final details of the contract....overall though..give Mike an A..
Craig Walker...maybe the best out of the group...he verbatum backed up every single answer Garrison gave in his testimony...plus some...He had a E-Mail that the Defense Attorney's missed that clearly showed Rich had legal counsel review the contract...big time blow in the defense...The defense clearly off their game at that point..Give Craig and A++
Steve Farmer...BOG member , he is a defense attorney...,<y advise to those in the home state...never hire this guy..He may have single handedly sent this case sideways..and Rich's Attorneys were all over this guy....Steve let emotion come into this...not only did he answer questions he decided to volunteer information that was not being asked..I am surprised teh WV Lawyers did not jump in and object or slow thisguy down somehow...He made it easy for the Robon to ask questions they may have never been broght up....Then he began to take cheap shots....I would give this guy and F-...but I will just say Idiot...due to the fact he is a practicing attorney..
Perry Petroplus...BOG member ..Real Estate Investor...Nieghbor of Rich's and a good friend...He catagoricaly denied telling Rich that Garrison would facilitate change when Hardesty left..He and Rich are best friends and next door Niehbors...He really had nothng more to add and his depositon was short...Perry..B+
Mike Parsons...This was the most interesting one of all...and may be somewhat fo the most damaging one of all...Rich's claim was that University was in breach becuase of speicific items he wanted...Text Books, Field Passes, Web Site, Side Line Control , increase for Coaches and seats for recruits at basketball games...
Mike was honest I beleive and forth coming....He said the University had no intentions of giving Rich a Web Site....this contradicts Garrisons and Walkers testimony...He was asked about the other key items Rich was asking for specifically money for Coach's, text books and none of these things had really been looked at....
He was asked if Steve Farmer had any involvement with the term sheet and agreement..he said he had none, that he and the Finance Director at the school put it together...Farmer said he was the influence
He was asked if Garrison was involved with finalizing the contract...he said yes..Garrison said no...
He was asked when putting in the figure of 4 million whre did that come from and he really could not give a concrete method of how that figure was derived an acknowledged that it was the high end of the buyout scale that he used as a guideline....
Rich's attorney's did a great job in trying to bring in the MAC and other fundraising entities the school draws on to show that there are no damamges to speak of or a clear way to determine that the future success or faliure of the program will ever reach that number int eh next 3 years ....They did a great job of posioning thier for more information that was not part of the evidence recovery in the inital process...Have to give Rich's team a B...Would have been an A if it was notf or that one damaging E-Mail....
Wv Lawyers..I am not sure what I would grade them....It appeared their intent was not to cast too many objections making it clear that there was nothing to hide....I think they gave guys like Steve Farmer too much rope and maybe should have given Parsons a little more help....Their cross examination was very good...but I thought they gave Rich's team to much room to take some questions down roads they did not need to go especially when they clearly were tying to make this about actual damages and not liquidated damamges...But they have pretty good to this point I am sure it is all part of the plan...
But after reading this a couple of thoughts came to my mind.....Mike Brown..what an interesting guy ...He makes the Drew Rosenhaus's of the world look like chior boy's...what an unethical man he is ....If I am an institution I would tell a Coach if he is representation we will take a pass...
It will be interesting to see what happens next...I guess...I don't think this is the slam dunk everyone thought just a few weeks ago...As I said then Rich's team hadnot gotten their chance to take thier swings...they clearly made some headway ...how much..who knows, but hey were much better prepared than the first time around...
The last thought...and find this hard to be the case....Some of the questions and someofthe answers made it look like the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing...That there never seems to be a weekly or bi-monthly Executive meeting with the President for Departmental updates....Somehow I fand that highly unlikely that they don't exsist...But there wasclealry an atempt to avoid culpability at times spread al the way through eveyone's testimony....
It also made me think that Rich's team knows it needs to hit a home run in arbitration, that this thing can't get to a court room..
Anyhow just some quick peceptions
