The U.S. Supreme Court declined today to hear arguments in a lawsuit brought against the NCAA by the former men’s basketball coach at the State University of New York at Buffalo.
The coach, Tim Cohane, charges that an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations in his basketball program ruined his professional reputation. The NCAA, which says the case should be dismissed, had asked the high court to hear its appeal.
A 2001 investigation by the NCAA’s infractions committee found that Mr. Cohane and his staff had violated several NCAA rules in the middle and late 1990s. In addition to the penalties imposed on SUNY-Buffalo’s athletics program as a result of the violations, the NCAA required any institution looking to hire Mr. Cohane to first justify the decision before the infractions committee.
Mr. Cohane, who left Buffalo in late 1999, sued the NCAA in 2004, charging that the investigation destroyed his chances of pursuing a coaching career. Although a trial judge dismissed Mr. Cohane’s case in 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinstated it this year.
The Supreme Court’s decision today is not unusual. It is rare for the high court to agree to hear cases on appeal. The case, NCAA v. Cohane, can now proceed to trial. —Libby Sander
