St. John’s fired head basketball coach Mike Anderson earlier this month after four seasons. On Monday, word came that Anderson would be suing the university.
ESPN obtained Anderson’s termination letter, which read Anderson was fired for cause, listing at least three reasons. One of them read he was fired for “failture to perform your duties and responsibilities in a manner that reflected positively on St. John’s University.”
Anderson said he believes he was wrongfully terminated. St. John’s would have owed him $11 million were he not fired for cause.
“I vehemently disagree with the university’s decision to terminate my contract for cause,” Anderson told ESPN. “The for cause accusation is wholly without merit and I will be aggressively defending my contractual rights through an arbitration process.”
The Red Storm were 68-56 and 30-46 in the Big East during Anderson’s four seasons. They did not play in the postseason.
Anderson picked up with St. John’s in spring of 2019 after Arkansas had dismissed him. He coached eight season with the Hogs, making three NCAA Tournaments and two NITs. Before that, he was an assistant to Nolan Richardson from 1985-2002, head coach UAB from 2002-06 and head coach at Missouri from 2006-11.
Richardson filed suit against Arkansas in 2002 citing a racially discriminatory environment. That suit was dismissed in 2004.
Arkansas radio color commentator and former assistant coach Matt Zimmerman took to Twitter to defend Anderson on Monday.
I pride myself in never going after people on social. But this is AWFUL what @StJohnsRedStorm @StJohnsU are doing to a very high character Christian family man—who in 40 YEARS has NEVER ONCE been in any NCAA issues at Tulsa-Arkansas 25 years-UAB-Mizzou-SJU @MikeCraggSJU AWFUL pic.twitter.com/JamB2HpWKt
— Matt Zimmerman (@CoachZ_ARKANSAS) March 20, 2023
[lawrence-auto-related count=1 category=130]
[mm-video type=playlist id=01fc3h383th881vsf1 player_id=01eqbvp13nn1gy6hd4 image=]