re: Revisiting the Nate Oats hiring thread

quote:

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I get not renegotiating the buyout but how common is it for an AD to refuse to allow another school to contact a coach?

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Never, and it didn't happen this time either. It's a coping claim fans make.

For starters, the first contact's going to be someone contacting the coach's agent to see if there's any chance at all. The agent's then going to have a conversation with his client to see if there's any interest and if so what the rough $ number will be, which wound then be relayed back.

That's how the coach can say "I haven't talked to anybody with ABC University about the job" and it be a true statement. By the time it gets to actually contacting the coach, the deal - including potentially paying any buyout- will be all but done.

Even more importantly, this isn't the NFL or NBA where the league has the ability to enforce punishment on a team or individual coach. In the end, the only enforcement mechanism would be penalties against the coach that are spelled out in his contract. In this case, Alabama could have said "Kentucky, you can't talk to our coach," and UK's reply could/would have been "sure I can, all I gotta do is dial his phone number." Alabama wouldn't even have a civil claim against UK. Businesses poach employees from other businesses all the time.