Todd McNair granted new trial in fight against NCAA on eve of coaching in Super Bowl 55

Tampa Bay Buccaneers running backs coach Todd McNair, whose career as a college coach was derailed by his alleged role in the Reggie Bush scandal at Southern Cal, will get a new trial in his defamation lawsuit against the NCAA. 

In a decision released Friday, the California 2nd District Court of Appeal sided with a previous ruling granting McNair a new trial and denying the NCAA’s appeal that would have upheld an initial jury verdict in its favor. 

In 2019, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Frederick Shaller ordered the new trial, ruling that there was insufficient evidence for the verdict and that the jury had incorrectly answered one of the key verdict questions. There was also an issue with the jury foreperson, who worked at a law firm that had previously been associated with the NCAA on that case. 

The ruling Friday affirmed that Shaller did not abuse his discretion in calling for a new trial. 

McNair, who is coaching this weekend in Super Bowl 55, struggled to find work in either college or pro football after the NCAA charged him with unethical conduct and said that he knew or should have known that Bush had taken improper benefits from a sports agent while playing at USC. 

Todd McNair served as USC's running backs coach from 2004-2010. (Photo: Kirby Lee, US PRESSWIRE)

The genesis of that allegation was an interview with the agent, Lloyd Lake, who suggested that he had spoken with McNair once about Bush. McNair denied knowing Lake in interviews with the NCAA, but the NCAA enforcement staff used phone records and a photograph to connect them. That was enough to hand McNair a one-year show- cause penalty. 

As the case dragged on, however, the evidence against McNair did not hold up under public scrutiny as hundreds of pages of documents in the case were unsealed. 

In fact, the linchpin of the NCAA’s evidence — a two-minute, 23-second late night phone call between Lake and McNair — was mistakenly characterized as having been initiated by McNair. And Lake’s recollection of that conversation during his interview with NCAA enforcement was vague, indirect and based partly on hearsay, according to the court. It was also inadmissible as evidence because it was not testimony under oath. 

“The court concluded that McNair’s denial that he had knowledge of Lake’s payoffs to Bush ‘was not credibly rebutted or impeached’ and so the NCAA’s evidence about what was said in the late-night phone call was insufficient to justify the verdict,” the Court of Appeal wrote in Friday’s ruling.

An NCAA spokesperson said the association did not initially have any reaction to the decision. 

Follow colleges reporter Dan Wolken on Twitter @DanWolken

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