Kansas State University made waves in February when it fired its men’s basketball coach Jerome Tang “for cause.”

Tang told reporters after his team’s 29-point home loss to the University of Cincinnati that he was “embarrassed for the university,” that the players “do not deserve to wear this uniform” and added that “there will be very few of them in it next year.”

Four days later, Tang was out of a job with his team 1-11 in Big 12 Conference play. Kansas State Director of Athletics Gene Taylor cited those comments about the student-athletes and the “reaction to those comments from a lot of sources, both nationally and locally” as justification for the firing. As of April, there was no legal action taken.

But was Taylor truly offended by the comments or motivated by not wanting to pay Tang the $18.7 million contract buyout to which he was entitled if he was terminated without cause?

Tang’s attorney Tom Mars and Kansas State both declined to comment for this story.

To crisis consultant Jeff Hunt, who runs a reputation consulting firm that works with a host of colleges and universities, including the Southeastern Conference, the school’s explanation didn’t pass the smell test.

“From the outside looking in, it did not look like a very convincing rationale for dismissing him [for cause],” Hunt says. “I’ve heard coaches say a lot stronger things to motivate locker rooms than what he was reported to have said and done.”

For-cause terminations involving college coaches typically have involved clear lines that have been crossed, akin to former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous quote about obscenity and pornography: “I know it when I see it.”

A notable recent example included the University of Michigan firing head football coach Sherrone Moore for cause in December, alleging he had an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. 

Last year, he was charged with felony home invasion involving the staff member. In March, he pleaded no contest to trespassing and malicious use of a telecommunication device in a domestic relationship, ESPN reported. 

Another involved the University of Texas firing head basketball coach Chris Beard in 2023 after a felony domestic assault charge. The charge was later dropped, ESPN reported. 

“For-cause terminations involve bringing disrepute to the university’s reputation,” says Andrew Brandt, who is executive director of the Jeffrey S. Moorad Center for the Study of Sports Law at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law and a former NFL executive. “You think of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, DUI or things along those lines.”

Hunt agrees and says he hasn’t seen anything like what Kansas State has done. But he also notes that many universities are looking to cut budgets and costs. “That’s what it felt like to me, trying to avoid what would have been the legitimate money he would have been owed under his contract,” Hunt says.

But sports law attorney Jimmy McEntee, of Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C., told the ABA Journal he is not surprised Kansas State took the approach that it did.

“If you’re the school here, and you think there’s a good basis to terminate him without having to pay the 18 or so million he’s owed if it was a without-cause termination, it just makes financial sense to try to terminate him for cause.”

McEntee said the school has a good-faith argument that Tang’s comments brought embarrassment to the university.

“Reading the comments and listening to the press conference they took issue with, I can understand why the university would be upset about one of their coaches making the types of comments about their own student-athletes and believing that those comments constitute a material breach of the agreement,” McEntee says.

Nonetheless, the experts agree Kansas State is bearing reputational risks that could affect its ability to attract coaches in the future. And there are also potential liability implications.

“There’s the risk that if they don’t settle and this case does play out fully, whether it’s arbitration or litigation, that they might be on the hook for the coach’s attorney fees,” McEntee says. “So you might be looking at a situation where you’re out of pocket significantly more than the [millions] owed under the agreement.”

But Brandt believes a settlement is by far the most likely outcome. “The way I looked at Kansas State from afar was ‘that’s their opening offer,’” Brandt says. “Everything is negotiable. We’ll start at zero and see where we can get.”

While Tang’s press conference by itself may not have been enough to justify a termination for cause, Brandt adds that may not have been the whole story. “There are other parts we don’t know,” he says. “Was this the sole factor in his firing? Was that the only time he exhibited bad behavior towards his players?”

Louisiana State University briefly weighed taking a similar approach in firing its football coach Brian Kelly last fall. But the school backed off seeking a for-cause termination, McEntee says, because the contract was drafted in a way that was highly favorable to Kelly. 

That termination involved an even larger contract buyout of $54 million. LSU conceded it had terminated Kelly without cause and that he was entitled to the full buyout provided he made “good-faith, reasonable and sustained efforts to obtain” employment, according to the Substack Huddle Up.

Brandt says he has dealt with offset situations in coaches’ contracts firsthand and views that as an area that can lead to trouble. “It gets very sticky very fast with what qualifies for their duty to mitigate and find another job,” he notes.

Ultimately, he and McEntee both say these issues will turn on what the contracts say. If he were representing a coach, for instance, Brandt says he would want the language to include actual charges filed or something “very fact-specific" to justify a for-cause termination.

Meanwhile, Kansas State has since hired a new head men’s basketball coach with contract language that reportedly makes it easier to terminate for cause, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal.

Under new coach Casey Alexander’s contract, objectionable behavior reportedly includes conduct that, to a reasonable person, “is abusive or demeaning towards any student, employee, alumni; or brings… the university into public disrepute," the newspaper reported.

Moving forward, McEntree suspects more schools will take this approach. But he is quick to add about Tang’s situation: “Ultimately, there really is no winning here if you’re the school or the coach and having to deal with this publicly. As coaches’ buyouts continue to increase, these disputes are likely to continue to happen,” McEntee says.