The $6,000 Payment Behind Ohio State’s Vacated Seasons

On June 8, 2004, Ohio State terminated Jim O’Brien under Section 5.1(a) of his contract. The notice identified a specified failure of performance: a $6,000 loan or cash payment to the family of Aleksandar Radojevic. That contract notice made the payment the stated basis for ending O’Brien’s employment.

The payment had been made in late 1998 or early 1999. The court described it as having been made for humanitarian reasons, reflecting O’Brien’s position and the evidence considered in the case. Radojevic was later ruled ineligible by the NCAA for accepting money to play for a professional team in Yugoslavia. The payment thus carried a regulatory consequence even as the court’s description preserved the humanitarian rationale attributed to it.

The NCAA case also included the treatment of Boban Savovic. The association said former coaches concealed the cash payment from administrators for more than five years, and its public infractions report called the $6,000 transaction a “blatant violation.” It found that a booster provided Savovic with lodging, meals, clothing, merchandise, cash, and transportation before enrollment, then continued providing cash, expense assistance, and merchandise after he enrolled. The NCAA further found academic fraud because the booster wrote academic papers for Savovic after enrollment.

Ohio State imposed its own measure in December 2004: a one-year ban on NCAA and NIT postseason competition after the 2004-05 season. On March 10, 2006, the NCAA’s infractions decision placed the university on three years’ probation and imposed a show-cause penalty on O’Brien. The sanctions moved the matter beyond the payment cited in the termination notice, attaching institutional restrictions to the conduct described in the case.

The NCAA also required Ohio State to vacate its men’s basketball tournament records for 1999 through 2002. O’Brien’s employment had been ended through a notice centered on one payment; the NCAA’s decision reached the program’s completed tournament seasons as well. The cost was no longer confined to the coach named in the contract action: it was written into Ohio State’s official record through vacated results and continued penalties.