Posted by ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg
Michigan Athletic Director Bill Martin just released a statement about Rich Rodriguez settling his buyout case with West Virginia. RichRod will pay $1.5 million, while Michigan handles the other $2.5 million and Rodriguez's legal fees. Here's Martin's full statement:
"We are tremendously pleased to have been able to hire Rich Rodriguez as head coach of the University of Michigan football team. With his enthusiasm, integrity, and creative strategies he has already begun to make his mark on the program, and we are looking forward with great excitement to the coming season. To help Rich focus on the challenges ahead, we have worked with him to resolve the dispute between him and West Virginia University over the terms of his buyout.
Although he continues to disagree with the validity of the terms, Rich and the rest of us at Michigan felt that it would be best to get this distracting issue behind us. Accordingly, Rich has agreed to pay $1.5 million out of his own pocket in three annual payments of $500,000 beginning in January, 2010. UM Athletics will contribute $2.5 million in a single payment made by the end of July, 2008, for the total of $4
million that WVU sought. Separately, Athletics has agreed to pay Rich's attorney fees. A financially self-sustaining unit at UM, Athletics will cover all payments from its reserve funds, which are annual operational surpluses from such sources as sponsorships, licenses, and media rights payments.
This situation is now resolved, and we are ready to move onward to a new era of Michigan football. Go Blue!"
This settles the monetary end of things, but the question of whether either side is truly happy remains.
Adam Rittenberg joined ESPN.com in 2008 after four years at the Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald, where he covered sports at Notre Dame, Northwestern, DePaul and several other colleges. He lives in Chicago.
