This board is absolutely bananas on this one.
To think this is right, a common practice, or all above board means you're either willfully ignorant, a hypocrite, or an idiot.
Have a look around college sports man. It is kinda common. My favorite example is ex Florida football coach Jim McElwain. They wanted him out, but he had a $12.5m buyout. They fire him, with 'cause' being that he failed to provide evidence of claimed death threats against him for his coaching performance. He was forced to settle for $7.5m.
Hell look at Pitt trying to fire Stallings for cause this spring, because they didn't want to pay the $10m. Their justification?
On Jan. 2 Stallings responded to a verbal barb from the crowd in Louisville that “at least we didn’t pay our players $100,000." That's it. They ended up reaching an undisclosed settlement.
Bottom line, there is no integrity in major college sports. None. You need to understand and accept that if you are going to enjoy the product. Having gone to school in the SEC, and witnessing some of the things that went on, I've long held zero illusions about the cesspool that is college athletics.