LAS VEGAS -- Fired UNLV basketball coach Bill Bayno isn't
going quietly.
An attorney for Bayno said the coach could go to court to try
and clear his name and force the university to pay him for the
final two-plus years remaining on his contract.
"All options are open," attorney Steve Owens said.
Bayno is upset that the university pinned him with all the blame
on the NCAA probation handed down Tuesday, and likely will
challenge UNLV's assertion that the NCAA violations were his fault.
"I wasn't charged with anything," Bayno told The Associated
Press after being fired. "The NCAA cleared me of wrongdoing."
Bayno was fired after the NCAA gave UNLV four years' probation
and a one-year postseason tournament ban for violations stemming
from the recruitment of Lamar Odom in 1996 and 1997.
Bayno's friend, dentist David Chapman, was accused by the NCAA
of giving Odom $5,600 in monthly payments when he came to Las Vegas
before enrolling at UNLV. Bayno has said he was not aware of the
payments and would have turned Chapman into the NCAA if he had
known.
A clause in Bayno's contract says the university does not have
to pay him if he intentionally violated NCAA rules. He made
$136,500 in base salary, and about $600,000 overall.
UNLV has offered to give him another job in the athletic
department until his contract expires, and Owens said he met with
UNLV officials Wednesday to discuss alternatives.
Owens, though, claims it was the university, and not Bayno,
which was mentioned prominently in the NCAA infraction report, and
that his client was wrongfully terminated.
"If you read the report, nowhere does it say coach Bayno failed
to maintain control over the basketball program, but that the
university failed to monitor the activities of the boosters," he
said.
UNLV president Carol Harter scoffed at that claim at a Tuesday
press conference, saying the coach was responsible for the program.
She said she could not be around the gym watching Bayno's
activities on a regular basis.
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