Cleveland PD
Woman who supported Ohio State player settles with boosters
12/7/2005, 1:30 a.m. ET
The Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A woman who claims she financially supported a former Ohio State men's basketball player has reached a settlement in a lawsuit that led to an NCAA investigation and the firing of former coach Jim O'Brien, a court official confirmed.
Jack Kullman, administrator for the Franklin County Court of Appeals, confirmed Tuesday that the parties settled this week, The Columbus Dispatch reported Wednesday.
Kathleen Salyers said in the suit that two Ohio State boosters, Dan and Kim Roslovic, reneged on a verbal agreement to pay her $1,000 a month for letting former Buckeyes guard Boban Savovic live with her when he was a student from 1998 to 2002. She was seeking more than $600,000.
Depositions in Salyers' lawsuit revealed O'Brien had given $6,700 to recruit Aleksandar Radojevic in 1998, leading to O'Brien's dismissal last June and Ohio State's decision to keep its men's basketball team from postseason play last season.
Neither party would disclose the terms of the settlement and no further information was available from the court, the newspaper said.
Salyers, who was a baby sitter and house cleaner for the Roslovics, says she spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Savovic and did papers and classwork for him.
Her lawsuit was dismissed in May by a Franklin County Common Pleas judge who said the alleged oral contract was unenforceable. But a hearing on an appeal was set to begin this week.
The now-divorced Roslovics had denied there was an agreement for Salyers to take in and care for Savovic. He came to the United States from war-torn Yugoslavia and played on Ohio State's 1998-99 Final Four team.
O'Brien is seeking $3.5 million from Ohio State in a breach-of-contract lawsuit, which is set to begin Monday in the Ohio Court of Claims. He says the university improperly fired him before the completion of the NCAA investigation.
Ohio State has conceded to nine NCAA rules violations, including seven in the men's basketball program, although it argues that it shouldn't be held liable for some violations because O'Brien made it impossible for athletic administrators to know about them.
Among the most serious charges, the NCAA said administrators and compliance officials should have known about transgressions by O'Brien and one of his assistants. A hearing on the university's possible penalties from the NCAA is set for Friday.