Harricks Denied: The federal judge in Jim Harrick and Jim Harrick Jr.’s defamation case against their former employers, the University of Georgia, has thrown out a large portion of the case. The U.S. District Court judge said the Harricks failed to show they had any real claim of harm done and also cited the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which prohibits citizens from suing state agencies unless the state allows it. The NCAA placed Georgia on probation after an internal probe found a course taught by Jim Jr. to be fraudulent. The probe into the Harricks sparked the now infamous Tony Cole interview in which Cole identified a series of NCAA violations including receiving an A in a class he did not attend taught by Junior.
The senior Harrick won an NCAA championship in 1995 with UCLA, the following season he was fired for filing an inaccurate expense report. In his next job, he was accused of changing player’s grades and receiving illegal gifts from boosters at Rhode Island. [5/21/06]
