Neuheisel wins more than just $4.5 million in settlement

The future will answer.

"It sounds like Rick wants to mend all the fences," said Mike Cleary, executive director of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. "There's someone out there that will want him. There's a right place for everybody."

It's the dawn of a new day in the coaching profession where lying doesn't necessarily make you a liar. Truth is now a relative term. And if the NCAA is getting ready to throw the book at you, that might not be such a bad thing. Especially if it hasn't double-checked bylaw 32.3.7.

There is one truth emerging. Neuheisel is more hirable than the man who replaced him at Colorado. Think about it. Whose future in college football do you like better right now? Neuheisel's or Gary Barnett's.

As callous as Neuheisel treated CU when he left for Washington, he has less baggage than the sitting coach. Barnett is on an island in a recruiting scandal that won't go away. His president, chancellor and athletic director, all gone. The difference: Neuheisel is available.

Meanwhile, Barnett's firing seems inevitable after the leaking of grand jury testimony last week.

Neuheisel's worst transgressions were not lying to his employers about interviewing with the 49ers or participating in an NCAA Tournament pool. Any AD, in their heart of hearts, would tell you that the real issue is that Neuheisel took on his employer and amateur sports' most powerful governing body.

That's serious baggage. What happens if Neuheisel is fired at his next job? Does he sue again? Does his mere presence invite NCAA scrutiny? Those are the main questions any prospective employer needs to ask. But the man is available and wants the world to know it.

"I'm excited about going to Baltimore and this new challenge," he said to reporters. "But I told (NCAA enforcement director David Price) that, regardless of the outcome, I want the opportunity -- and hope it will be available -- to be in college football again. Price said he wanted that, too."

NCAA president Myles Brand has promised a review of the enforcement process. He might start by asking David Price, "How the heck did we let this guy get off?"

The convoluted trial embarrassed everyone but left Neuheisel the least tainted. The sins basically canceled out. Still standing is the NCAA (a bit red-faced), Washington (a bit poorer) and a highly successful coach worthy of another chance.

"He has the right to feel vindicated," said Dennis Cross, a Kansas City, Mo.. attorney who fought the NCAA six years ago and won a $54.5 million settlement. Cross represented restricted earnings coaches in a landmark case against the NCAA.

Add that to the Neuheisel case and one involving Jerry Tarkanian and you have the three most embarrassing legal moments in NCAA history, all since 1998. The NCAA paid the former UNLV coach $2.5 million ending a 25-year battle between the two sides. Tarkanian alleged the NCAA manufactured evidence against him in order to run him out of coaching.

The NCAA apparently has learned its lesson. It settled quickly with Neuheisel when the association found out it had not even followed its own rules in interviewing him about the tournament pool. A two-month old bylaw, in June 2003, required that the NCAA notify Neuheisel that the interview was about gambling.

"Isn't this ironic"? Neinas said, dreaming up a headline. "NCAA caught for violating its own rules."

Yes, there is the stain of 51 secondary recruiting violations that Neuheisel accumulated at Colorado and Washington. For that he was sanctioned by the ethics committee of his own professional organization -- the American Football Coaches Association.

There is the general lack of contrition. There is the lying, or whatever you want to call it. Former Washington president Lee Huntsman testified that Neuheisel lacked "the integrity reflex." But if any one those issues were fireable offenses, a sizeable portion of I-A coaches would be looking for jobs.

There seems to be at least one major recruiting scandal every year ... outside the SEC, even. Coaches been known to recruit repeat offenders, then plead ignorance. It seems to be about beating the system while beating State U.

Yes, that basically describes Neuheisel. But with his colleagues having set the bar so low the man is not poison in the college game. He's trying to get back in an exclusive club, knocking on the door for a second -- or is it third? -- chance.