Former PSU guard Kanye Clary says he was a victim of intimidation, retaliation, slander, and the illegal use of his name, image, and likeness in a lawsuit against Mike Rhoades, Penn State, Success With Honor NIL, and more.
Former PSU guard Kanye Clary, MBB, sues PSU, NIL and coach Rhoades
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This is the player who quit last season and whose father kept making comments about playing time. I guess that his post-PSU life isn't going that well, so now he needs a money grab. God, do I hate college athletics now, but unfortunately I love them at the same time.
Without knowing the facts, if these allegations are untrue, I hope that Rhoades counter sues for defamation.
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He basically stopped playing and used an injury as the excuse, and then left the team before the season ended.
Most interesting thing that happened all season for PSU MBB.
These lawsuits are going to become very common; they're an unintended consequence of so-called college students being paid to play. IMO, it's a way for an athlete whose athletic career isn't going to extend past college and who needs to get on with his life's work to get a pay day without having to get a real 9 to 5 job.
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I agree with you. "Damages" are now readily discoverable.
it has long interested me that the rules of sports are different than in normal settings. for example, Al Atkinson was found to be innocent when he took Lynn Swan's head off after a play. Of course, if you did that on the street you'd be charged with assault.
In this case, the kid can argue that he was going to be a millionaire and the coach/school was negligent in their duties to develop him. From that standpoint, it is baseless but in today's law, there is as much damage in being accused as there is in being guilty. So the defendant will often settle to get it behind them. Of course, that practice only makes it more likely you will get sued again because you are easy money. And, as we know, there are incompetent coaches as well.
Probably smart just to pretend it isn't happening.
Allow this and the floodgates will open. Every kid who wasn't good enough will be suing because they didn't let him start anyway. No NBA, but at least some $$.
This is another reason why we just should dispense with the charade and have these athletes become paid employees of the school so that they can enter into contracts in which both parties have duties and rights. This way, the contract could have a provision in it that would protect the school if the athlete doesn't have a pro career.
Can you imagine if regular students sued schools because their phoney baloney BA degree didn't result in a high paying job right out of school?
Agreed...but as I've posted before, we need a union (or equivalent) so that the NCAA can negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. Short of that, it is simply the wild wild west. Everyone can do whatever they want.
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We have employment attorneys, real estate attorneys, discrimination attorneys, etc., and pretty soon there will be NIL attorneys. It's going to be the wild west since there are no federal laws that apply and almost no legal precedents. I fear the only strategy for the plaintiff will be threaten bad publicity if the defendents don't settle out of court.
Rhodes won't counter sue. Our BOT is going to hire Lanny Davis and he will advise them to roll over and settle.
I may sue young Clary, fow wasting the resources of the university and my precious time.
100% we settle. It's easy to prove that he was misled during his recruitment and promises weren't met which cost him future NIL money. Every text coaches sent can and will be useful against them
As a high school basketball coach, I’ve had parents of players try to sue me claiming that I ruined their child’s chances of playing in the NBA. Obviously that was dismissed rather quickly, but it’s amazing what some people think.
A complete nightmare start for the Rhodes era: Players quitting, lawsuits, and St Francis AND Robert Morris make the NCAA tournament before Penn State under Rhodes. If Ed DeChellis wins tonight it will be complete.
emails and texts are discoverable in a lawsuit. Universities, coaches, and NIL collectives shouldn't be making promises or communicating details of deals that way.
During my career we wouldn't allow engineers to communicate technical issues that way. Lawyers told us that one engineer could warn us about a potential quality issue via email while 19 others would say it's not an issue. In a lawsuit a plaintiff could find that one email and use it as prove that we knew there was a problem and did nothing about it.
It seems to me that mails from coaches should say things like it was great to meet you, hope you enjoyed yourself, and we'd love to have you join our team. Then say you'll receive a separate package with details, just not by email.
This is not good. Hopefully a judge reviews this and says no case, not going forward.
I coached 3-4 graders this year and next year adding 5-6 graders to my 3-4 graders..Looking forward to many lawsuits down the road 🤣. Funny thing is my business lawyer happens to be the other coach for the team. I guess I better make sure he’s taken care of 🤔. That is simply amazing!
Yeah, the crazy part is this was a kid that I cut. He wasn’t even good enough to make the team, but his mom thought for sure that he was going to play in the NBA. He was 5 foot six. I’ve never had a kid actually play in the NBA, but I’ve had one sign a free agent deal And play in the summer league and beyond their G league roster, but has yet to ever suit up in the NBA.
IIRC he was playing along side Ace for a while and was out leading scorer. The next thing we knew he was on the bench presumably because of an injury. He played sparingly when he returned and I assumed that it was a discipline issue. On February 19th Rhoades announced that Clary was dismissed from the team for undisclosed reasons.
PSU played better without him. I don't know if he simply didn't fit the scheme or if there was a conflict with Ace and other players. We certainly could have used his talent (but maybe not his attitude) after Ace got hurt this year. It's a shame.
I'm curious if any PSU players will testify in Rhoades defense or if he and PSU will keep the kids out of it and settle.
Every parent thinks their kid is NBA worthy or NFL worthy or USMNT worthy if it is soccer. Just a joke and totally clueless.
This lawsuit better be dismissed. This guy flat out quit on the team because he was selfish and has a Dad who is clueless. Opens up Pandora's box if this suit goes anywhere.
Every parent also thinks their kid is a genius worthy of being admitted into advance placement classes.
YES, they always say that they just need challenged, they’re bored in regular classes. And then you find out they can’t even multiply single digit numbers.
Clary better hope that everything works out at his current team because this lawsuit makes him untouchable for another school and coach. I hope he gets his shot, but I believe he made a big mistake with this lawsuit.
