By TIM KORTEAP Sports Writer KENT (AP) – A settlement announced Monday in Rick Neuheisel’s lawsuit against the NCAA and the University of Washington gives the fired football coach $4.7 million. The deal was announced by King County Superior Court Judge Michael Spearman, just before closing arguments were to begin in the 5-week-old trial. Neuheisel will receive a cash payment of $2.5 million from NCAA, and the university will forgive a $1.5 million loan from the school that Neuheisel had earlier been asked to pay back. The university also will pay him $500,000 in cash and $200,000 in interest. After his brief announcement, the judge called attorneys in the case into his chambers. Neuheisel and other principals in the case were not immediately available for comment. Neuheisel had alleged the university wrongfully terminated his contract, and that the NCAA improperly influenced his employment by encouraging Washington administrators to fire him. The university had argued that he had signed a contract that allowed for his firing for acts of dishonesty. School officials have said Neuheisel was fired for gambling on an NCAA basketball pool and failing to be forthright about it with NCAA investigators. Last week, Spearman left open the possibility of declaring a mistrial because the NCAA had failed to provide Neuheisel’s legal team with an updated version of its bylaws during discovery. In a statement Monday, the university said it agreed to settle because a mistrial could be declared. The updated bylaws seem to bolster Neuheisel’s argument that NCAA investigators acted improperly when they failed to tell him in advance that they planned to question him regarding his gambling. 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 she said Neuheisel lied to her about interviewing for a job with the San Francisco 49ers and about his participation in NCAA men’s basketball gambling pools in 2002 and ’03. Neuheisel has since been hired as quarterbacks coach for the NFL Baltimore Ravens.
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