Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- Former Utah State University head football coach Blake Anderson filed a $15 million wrongful termination lawsuit against the university.
- The lawsuit claims breach of contract and reputational harm, disputing USU's reasons for termination.
- The lawsuit argues termination was "for convenience," impacting his future coaching opportunities.
LOGAN — Utah State University and its former head football coach Blake Anderson are once again in the legal spotlight after Anderson filed a $15 million wrongful termination lawsuit against the university and its athletic director on Tuesday.
Anderson is claiming "significant damages and reputational harm" for breach of contract, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit comes four months after Anderson's contract was terminated in July "for actions taken in spring 2023" that "violated both his employment agreement and university policy," according to a statement released by the school at the time.
The violation, according to the university, related to promptly reporting issues relating to sexual assault and domestic violence.
"This decision comes after a thorough external review of alleged noncompliance with university policies that implement Title IX, which require full and timely reporting of disclosures of sexual misconduct — including domestic violence — and prohibit employees from investigating disclosures of sexual misconduct themselves," the university said.
USU has been plagued in recent years with players being arrested for sexual assault or misconduct, the most recent of which came in July 2023 when Kingsley Holliday went to jail and was accused of aggravated kidnapping, rape and forcible sodomy.
Also in July 2023, former USU football player Patrick Maddox settled a federal lawsuit against the school and Anderson for $150,000.
The suit alleged retaliation by the team and staff after Maddox recorded and shared team meetings that included derogatory comments about sexual assault victims — retaliation that led to Maddox leaving the team.
Court documents said the recordings Maddox shared of an August 2021 team meeting "highlighted the problematic manner in which USU handles conversations about sexual harassment and assault."
Maddox's recordings captured remarks made by Anderson and campus and Logan police chiefs. This included the campus police chief's "problematic" comments about some women who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who "may tell church leaders that sex was nonconsensual even if it was consensual."
The release of those recordings led to the resignation of the Utah State police chief and an apology issued by Anderson.
Now, the lawsuit is claiming USU terminated his employment "for convenience" rather than "for cause," as addressed in his employment contract.
"The entirety of USU's purported basis for terminating Coach Anderson 'for cause' can be boiled down to one, single incident involving a football player's arrest on April 5, 2023, for an incident that was alleged to have occurred off campus at the player's apartment," said the lawsuit. "The alleged incident involved the player and the mother of the player's child who, at the time of the incident, was not even a student at USU."
The lawsuit goes on to claim that Anderson had no knowledge of the player being arrested and that the player "concealed from Coach Anderson and other members of the coaching staff that he had been arrested" and that Anderson was under the impression the player had been unavailable for a meeting due to the player having to take his child to the hospital.
Anderson is claiming compensatory damages in the suit that exceed $15 million due to his plans to coach "on an upward trajectory for at least another 10 years."
The lawsuit also said that Anderson has been left "unemployable in the industry he has worked for over 30 years."
"Multiple schools have expressed a high level of interest but have stated that they are concerned about the optics due to the public nature of (USU's) aired grievances against Anderson," the lawsuit reads.
One day after Anderson was officially relieved of his duties, Anderson and his attorney released a 70-page response, which was also included in the lawsuit.
"USU owes Coach Anderson not only the full amount of his buyout but also a retraction of its defamatory press release and a public apology," said the response.
USU did not immediately respond to requests for comment from KSL.com.
