Well the summer for MAAC teams can’t be without any events. Marist, angry over James Madison Head Coach Matt Brady‘s departure, decided to bring a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court against Brady, JMU and the Commonwealth of Virginia.

This story came out a week ago locally and has picked up steam. (Hat tips to Sports Law Blog, the local papers, and Deadspin) USA Today published a story today about it with some more details:

“A contract is binding under both parties of the contract,” Marist lawyer Paul Sullivan said Wednesday. “Marist performed all the aspects of the contract. Matt Brady has to do the same thing.”

A reason this clause was probably in place is because a certain high up person in the Athletic Department believes that the coaches he hires and extends are obligated to stay at the school forever.

We also have the court document. Legal experts have had trouble with a particular clause, which binds the coach to not contact any player that he recruited to go to Marist, including Gabe Feldman who directs Tulane’s sports law program:

“It just seems so difficult to enforce and prove what the coach may or may not be doing…And it also has an impact on the student-athletes. I think the courts would hesitant to enforce something that impacts on a third party, especially a student-athlete.”

He also said that it would also be difficult to prove money damages, if at all. Of the four players who committed and went to James Madison, only Julius Wells signed a letter of intent and was granted the request to get out of the letter of intent. According to NCAA Rules, a team has the right to grant or not grant a release of the player. If Marist wanted to protect the binding issue for the student athletes, why didn’t they protest and not grant a release for this player?

Sources have said that Marist requested a lot of documents from Brady, including some for David Devezin who was denied a medical hardship waiver and unexpectedly exhausted his eligibility, but that Brady was very slow to getting them back to Marist if at all.

James Madison and Brady have not commented on the issue. JMU says that they have never commented on pending litigation.

Marist is coming off a season where they did not fare well and the future has been hurt. To go to court for it, that might be something else. Marist wants to settle, it says in the brief they have been looking for a solution, you have to think that by suing they wanted to bring James Madison to the bargaining table. However we will see if Brady will try to challenge this knowing that it will mean increasing the bad blood between the two parties. You can bet the NCAA and other schools will be paying very close attention to this case if it goes to trial.

Let’s see them on the court for the next few years. James Madison and Marist for a home and home. Let the fans have their say.

More Tomorrow…