Cottrell attorney to come calling on Fran
07/11/03
By PAUL GATTIS Times Sports Staff [EMAIL PROTECTED]
TUSCALOOSA - Former Alabama football coach Dennis Franchione apparently won't be making a clean getaway to Texas A&M.
An attorney representing former Alabama assistant football coach Ronnie Cottrell in Cottrell's lawsuit against the NCAA said Thursday that he intends to provide evidence supporting his client via Franchione.
"He does not want to be involved in this," Montgomery attorney Tommy Gallion said.
According to Gallion, a reason Franchione abruptly left Alabama for Texas A&M last December was because of the performance by Gene Marsh and Marie Robbins in defending the school in its case against the NCAA.
Marsh is the school's faculty athletics chairman while Robbins was the school's director of NCAA compliance. She is now the school's senior women's athletics administrator.
Together, Marsh and Robbins spearheaded Alabama's investigation in the case that eventually led to crushing sanctions being leveled against the Crimson Tide football program.
Marsh and Robbins are also defendants in Cottrell's lawsuit, which was originally filed last December. The suit seeks $60 million in damages and alleges Cottrell - a former assistant coach at Alabama - was wrongly accused in the scandal and ruined his coaching career.
Another former Tide assistant, Ivy Williams, has added his name to the lawsuit as well.
Gallion said affidavits recently obtained by his investigators point toward Franchione's frustration with Marsh and Robbins.
"One (affidavit) talks about a good friend of Coach Franchione," Gallion said. "It basically says that Franchione could not operate with Gene Marsh and Marie Robbins in the athletic department."
Gallion did not elaborate further, nor did he give any details of a new "out-of-state" defendant who he said will be added to the lawsuit in papers to be filed Tuesday.
But Gallion said the several affidavits will be among the papers filed Tuesday in Tuscaloosa County circuit court. The case has been transferred to Tuscaloosa County from Montgomery County.
"We're going to file an amended complaint next Tuesday," Gallion said. "We have not been able to get any of the documents we have requested from any of the defendants.
"So we've had to for the last several weeks put together additional facts ourselves by our investigators. We intend to lay these out in the complaint along with sworn affidavits from people."
Among the defendants in the case are the NCAA, NCAA infractions committee chairman Thomas Yeager, recruiting analyst Tom Culpepper, Marsh and Robbins.
Gallion reiterated his claim that the recruiting scandal for former Memphis prep star Albert Means "was purely manufactured" by Tennessee boosters, including Roy Adams - who once was a close friend of Logan Young. Young, of course, has been accused of bankrolling the deal that brought Means to Alabama.
Young, who has been permanently disassociated by Alabama as a booster, has denied any wrongdoing.
A federal grand jury in Memphis has been investigating the case for almost two years.
"It's going to be interesting," Gallion said. "We're fighting hard to put it all together."
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