Kansas pays off David Beaty

Kansas is finally officially closing the books on the David Beaty era.

In a Friday night news dump for the ages, Kansas announced a little after 6:00 PM local time that the University has agreed to settle with their previous head football coach for the tidy sum of $2.55 million.

Beaty was originally owed $3 milliion. The statement from the University reads:

Today, Kansas Athletics entered into a $2.55 million financial settlement with former head football coach David Beaty, ending all litigation and disputes. Despite the settlement, the University maintains that the facts and principles behind its position remain intact. For the betterment of KU, and driven by a willingness to move forward during a time of uncertainty in college athletics, the University has a now put this matter behind us. All funds to be paid as part of the settlement will come from the original amount placed in escrow during the 2018-19 fiscal year following Beaty’s separation from KU.

The clown show that is the Jeff Long era continues. First of all, blaming it on the corona virus (a time of uncertainty) sure is... something. Secondly, if Long truly cared about “the betterment of KU” he would have paid Beaty what he was owed in the first place so that we could all begin to move on. And finally, how much money did the University waste on lawyers prior to this settlement? I’m guessing they ended up spending a lot more than $3M.

So let’s recognize this for what it is. Beaty’s team of lawyers was preparing to depose various people in and around Kansas athletics, potentially including TJ Gassnola, the “booster” (per Jeff Long) at the heart of the NCAA case against the KU basketball program. These depositions would have been included in the current pending NCAA infractions case. That’s obviously not a risk that KU was willing to take, and so, here we are.

This is a huge L for Jeff Long, but, at least it’s finally over and we can start to move on - something we should have been able to do 18 months ago.