Fighton247 Board

AbsenteeTrojan:

How's it going? I agree and paraphrased FRCP 37 in several of my responses, to include my response to IronMike when I said "doing so will almost ensure McNair's victory"...Deleting or withholding emails will be contempt of court and will cause more issues including fines and POSSIBLE jail time. The key piece and one of the most damaging is that Dees can not refuse to talk. Could try to plead the 5th but that is unlikely to be allowed unless he did something criminal. You can assert the 5th Amendment in civil proceedings, but, unlike in criminal proceedings, a jury can be told about it and can assume the statements would have been damaging.

As this is not a criminal case again the damages will be limited to those you cited in FRCP 37. If there is a smoking gun the NCAA will settle before allowing either Dees to speak or the emails to be released.

Absentee Trojan:

For those of us who are not lawyers (or in law school), your response was very insightful.

Appreciate your help

IronMike, that's all true. McNair may want justice served; he may see this all the way through to the end of a trial. However, you can never underestimate the power of a check handed to you with a number followed by six zeros: X,000,000.

I can't see him turning that down.

rkinslow: No problem. The analysis is a good exercise for me, lol. And it gets me away from studying for a few minutes.

No, I didn't take your response the wrong way at all.

My copyrights final is actually next Thursday, but I'm prepping for it now because I have a final on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.

This is what I am concerned about too. It's easy for us, who uniformly hate the NCAA, to want to try every way possible to overthrow it. But a person like McNair very well may see it as a chance to make big bucks, and if some of the not-so-flattering reports about McNair's character are true then I wouldn't be surprised if he chooses to do so.

I hope I am wrong, but I do fear that this will be settled out of court.

I don't think accepting the settlement in itself reflects poorly on his character. I wouldn't blame him at all if that is what he chooses to do. But I do feel that someone with less character is more likely to accept the money rather than to fight the NCAA.

Besides, wouldn't McNair receive a settlement anyway if he were to fight the NCAA and win?

I'm going to dream/hope/fantasize here a bit.

Wouldn't it be nice if a number of wealthy alums stepped up and offered to match the NCAA's buyout offer in the event Todd took the case to court and lost?

He would still have a guaranteed settlement, but far more important, he would have an opportunity to clear his name and regain his reputation. Not to mention the similar benefits it would hold for USC, the institution.

Maybe I'm being a bit unrealistic, but what is the price tag of someones reputation? If the record is sealed, the NCAA still controls the narrative and could blow it off as if it was cheaper to buy him out than go to court, since no one would know what the buyout figure was.

Todd would still have a dark cloud of suspicion hanging over his head, even though he would have a much fatter bank account.

In many ways, he holds the keys to the NCAA's future in his hands if his case is as strong as many of us believe it to be. Hopefully he looks at the big picture, but that may just be the fan within me who holds utter antipathy for the NCAA.

Destruction of evidence is risky business ... as we see with so many individuals caught in the baseball juicing investigations, the truth will keep the Feds out of the investigation a lie or cover-up brings the Feds in and that is a lot of fire power to go up against.
The NCAA is better off releasing all documentation and letting a few heads roll than bringing in a Federal investigation for tampering with evidence.
If Paul Dees tells one lie in his testimony to the committee asking him questions regarding the Reggie Bush investigation he will be a Roger Clemens story.
Pat Haden played this brilliantly and I am sure that Todd has the support of USC backers donating to his legal costs as well as some of the legal minds of USC. This will be played out in the legal system where it belongs. This does not help USC right now, but it will get Todd a just settlement, clear his name and USC in the process.
I hope Todd takes it all the way and does not settle out of court.

What type of offer would McNair be looking at? Why not refuse to settle until the emails and Dee is deposed, couldn't he increase his settlement, and wouldn't that be the best revenge?

At least seven figures, with the amount of figures to the left of the decimal point to be determined.

Even though I'm not a lawyer, I would be really surprised to see this thing settled before Paul Dee is deposed. Leverage is power, and McNair's lawyers don't have the leverage today they would hold the day after they have all of the information required to go to trial.

I was thinking the same thing Brdcstr- you beat me to it.
Sure would be nice for this to go all the way, then all the nzaa's dirty laundry would be exposed.

Of course, those fair minded folks at the Nzaa will be eager to turn over their emails and all that stuff, so they can prove they had no hidden agenda. They having nothing to hide, I'm sure of it!
I'm sure they are more than willing to cooperate and demonstrate the cooperative principle they require of schools they investigate. They should be eager to prove their innocence.

Speaking of scumbags (mentioned in a few previous posts)
I had a Walter Byers like moment (the former Nzaa Fuhrer- who coined the phrase "student-athlete")
the other day and came up with a catchy little slogan for all Nzaa employees that flows just like
"student-athlete".

Assassin Policy Manual Update:
The proper way to address or refer to any
Nzaa employee shall be:

"scumbag-employee"

If said (scumbag-employee) has some fancy little title, then greet them appropriately.
For example: "Have a seat over here Mr. (scumbag-chairman),
but don't break my chair again, you fat-bodied scat lover."

You don't understand the meaning of the word Lynchpin?

Basically my point was that the NCAA used McNair's relationship with Reggie Bush as a way to "Prove" that USC (McNair) either knew or should have known that RB had a relationship with Lake that was suspicious.

If Todd McNair wasn't running around as part of Reggie's posse, the NCAA had no link, or lynchpin to hold their feeble case together.

And I guess you will have to trust me on whether he is a scumbag or not.

The biggest mistake Pete Carroll made was hiring that man. And he was warned, by numerous people not to do it.

He jusy developed a blind spot when it came to McNair. We could have gotten 100 oeoole to do that job, who would have done it better, and not gotten us in trouble.

And that isn't my opinion alone. That is a direct quote from another former NFL coach, off the record

Based on what's out there regarding Fat Bastard's health, the former will happen before the latter.

What a shame - potentially Schadenfreude at its finest. At least there's still Potuto and Conboy.