By Tim KorteAP Sports Writer KENT (AP) – Rick Neuheisel’s case against the University of Washington and the NCAA started Monday, with his lawyer claiming that NCAA administrators set the former football coach up and Washington officials fired him wrongly. Neuheisel’s lawyer, Bob Sulkin, told jurors in King County Superior Court that Neuheisel did gamble on NCAA basketball, but did so because he believed he was authorized under a memo written by former Washington compliance director Dana Richardson. In four seasons with the Huskies, Neuheisel compiled a 33-16 record, including a Rose Bowl victory in 2001 and a No. 3 national ranking. Former athletic director Barbara Hedges fired him in June 2003 after he lied to her about interviewing for a job with the San Francisco 49ers and about his participation in NCAA men’s basketball gambling pools. Sulkin said that the memo stated taking part in the pools was OK, and he said Neuheisel only lied about interviewing with the 49ers because the team asked him to keep the interview confidential. “It turned out the memo was wrong,” Sulkin said in his opening statement. “Rather than stand by him and say, ‘Sorry, our mistake,’ they blamed Rick Neuheisel.” The NCAA’s infractions committee investigated Neuheisel’s gambling _ he bet $6,400 in the 2002 and 2003 tournaments, winning $17,619 _ but declined to sanction him last fall, citing Richardson’s mistaken interpretation of NCAA rules that ban gambling by coaches, administrators and athletes at member schools. Neuheisel sat with his lawyers during the first day of the trial. At an adjacent table were lawyers for the university and former university president Lee Huntsman. At another table, NCAA enforcement services vice president David Price sat with lawyers for the NCAA. Besides focusing on Richardson’s erroneous memo, Sulkin said he would show that the NCAA violated its own rules in targeting Neuheisel and that university officials failed to follow Neuheisel’s contract when they fired him.
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