Kansas State offered Jerome Tang the chance to coach out the rest of this basketball season and then resign with a negotiated payout at the end, but he turned down that offer and instead got fired for cause.
Athletics director Gene Taylor confirmed to The Mercury Monday that when he met with Tang Sunday morning, he offered Tang a choice: coach the rest of the season and then resign, or else be terminated immediately for cause. If Tang chose the former, there would be some kind of financial package offered to him in lieu of a buyout, at an undetermined amount that would be substantially less than the full buyout.
“We never gave him a specific number,” Taylor said.
Tang asked for time to consider his options, so Taylor gave him until 5 p.m., then extended it to 6 p.m. Taylor said there was some back-and-forth between lawyers on both sides.
There was “a thin veil of hope that he would come back,” but obviously “that didn’t happen.”
Tang’s answer — given by his lawyer — was that he would resign “if he got the whole $18 million,” Taylor said. Which was tantamount to basically saying: Go ahead and fire me.
The $18.7-million figure is the amount of Tang’s buyout — the number K-State would owe him for firing him without cause. A firing “for cause” voids the buyout. “For cause” basically means that Tang violated the terms of his contract.
K-State is taking the legal position that his comments after the Cincinnati game — and the local and national reaction to them — constituted a contract violation and therefore that he could be fired for cause. Whether that turns out to be true is likely headed for court, Taylor acknowledged. He said he didn’t know exactly how the legal process worked, but that he would expect some sort of claim soon from Tang, assuming that the answer he gave indicated he would “fight like hell to get all $18 million.”
As to the negotiating position K-State would be in, “I don’t know what kind of leverage we have,” he said, but “if we go to court, that $18 million would be tied up for quite awhile. So do you go ahead and settle? That’s something I don’t know.”
By text, Tang on Monday declined to comment further, referring only to a written statement he released Sunday night saying that he “I … strongly disagree with the characterization of my termination,” and that “I have always acted in the best interests of the university and our student-athletes.”
