Letter on coach creates uproar

Some blast author; others say charges ought to be probed

Kevin Vaughan, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 9, 2005 at midnight

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A letter spelling out a string of allegations about the University of Colorado's football program and outgoing head coach Gary Barnett sparked a war of words Thursday.

Some attacked the author, questioning why anyone should take seriously charges from an unsigned letter. Others accused the university of again ignoring evidence of potential wrongdoing.

The letter, which lists more than 30 separate allegations and concerns, was revealed by the Rocky Mountain News on Thursday morning - just hours before the university made official the firing of Barnett after seven seasons and a litany of off-field problems.

University officials, including President Hank Brown, characterized the letter, believed to have been written by a former athletic department employee, as old news.

But an attorney who has been embroiled in a three-year legal battle with the university said the charges - particularly allegations that Barnett tried to influence the sworn testimony of subordinates - were not only new but serious enough that they should be fully investigated.

"We are concerned and want to get to the bottom of whether there was improper influence of testimony in our case," said Baine Kerr, who represents a woman who sued the university in federal court, alleging that she was gang-raped at a Dec. 7, 2001, party attended by football players and recruits.

"If CU tells you that's been investigated, they are not being accurate," Kerr said.

CU attorney Larry Pozner could not be reached for comment.

The university released the letter Thursday at the same time that administrators were criticizing its author for failing to sign it.

"If in fact there's any substance to it, the person should be able to stand up and make the comment and give validity to it," said Paul Schauer, chairman of the Board of Regents.

None of the charges in the letter has been proven, and CU officials downplayed its role in Barnett's ouster, which had been rumored for days.

A former assistant to Barnett told the News that she would dispute assertions in the letter that the coach "intimidated" her to get her to change her sworn testimony on a key point.

The News also learned that the author of the letter could be offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony.

The lawsuit filed by Kerr's client and another woman, who also alleged that she was sexually assaulted at the same party, was dismissed this year for lack of evidence.

The women are trying to revive it.

Among their arguments: that CU officials hid damaging information from them.

It was against that backdrop that the letter was sent in October to a private investigator who had worked for an independent commission established in 2004 by the Board of Regents to examine recruiting practices. The investigator, in turn, forwarded the letter to Brown six weeks ago.

The letter introduced a series of "things to look into." It charged that Barnett pressured others to testify in concert with him on key issues about the 2001 party, naming his former assistant as one of those who gave untruthful testimony in a sworn deposition.

It also detailed a host of alleged financial transgressions and potential violations of NCAA rules - including a charge that players were tipped off ahead of time to supposedly random drug tests.

Kerr said assertions that a former assistant to Barnett, Jane Ankney, may have altered her deposition testimony matched his own suspicions.

The issue: whether Ankney was telling the truth when she testified that she never delivered a message from Boulder District Attorney Mary Lacey to Barnett. Lacey had asked Ankney to tell Barnett about a meeting following an incident in December 1997 in which a high school student was allegedly raped by two football recruits. Lacey asked Ankney to relay to Barnett the details of the incident - and the concerns raised at the time by prosecutors about CU's recruiting program.

Lacey testified that Ankney told her she had delivered the message.

But when Ankney testified, she said she had lied to Lacey and that she had never delivered the message.

"If this can be shown to have been the case, it's extremely significant, because it is subornation of perjury, potentially," Kerr said.

Reached at her Minnesota home Thursday, Ankney denied that she lied during her deposition or that Barnett put any pressure on her.

"My story was truthful, and there was no intimidation," she said. "What they're saying is ridiculous. . . . How would they know my story had changed? I mean, I basically said in the deposition I had lied to Mary, which is what I did. I lost a friendship over that. I had a friendship with Mary Keenan (Lacey). I no longer have that friendship.

"It would have been much easier for me to not say that. I had to - I mean, it was an embarrassing situation for me."

The issue of whether Ankney delivered the message could have made the difference of millions of dollars to Barnett. His contract stipulated that he was to be paid $2 million when it expired in 2007 but gave the university the power to withhold it if he was terminated for "just cause."

In her deposition, given on April 29, 2004, Ankney recounted a phone call from Barnett in which she told him that she had lied to Lacey. Then, as she struggled to recall the conversation, she brought up Barnett's contract.

"It's just cause," Ankney said in the deposition, "whether or not they would have to pay him if he were - if he were - if he were to be fired or to let go, and it's been determined that I told him about all of this, then they would have just cause in not paying him."

Asked about that passage Thursday, Ankney said she did not remember it.

But she said no one was privy to her conversations with Barnett.

"This person who is making these allegations has no idea of conversations that went on or did not go on between Gary Barnett and me," she said. "For that person to make allegations about what Gary did or did not ask me to do really makes me mad. I wish that person would call me. This really upsets me that this person is making these allegations about me, about coach Barnett, about the entire athletic department."

She - like university officials - also blasted the letter's author for sending it anonymously.

"I'm totally unaware of this anonymous letter, but I can tell you what I think of the person," she said. "Anybody who doesn't have the guts - if somebody's going to take the time to write a letter then they need to have the guts to sign their name to it. That's a chicken you-know-what way to operate. I have absolutely no regard for whatever that person said."

But Kerr said the author, whom he declined to identify, may have had good reasons for not signing the letter.

"It was obvious to us this is a potential witness and a football insider who is very knowledgeable about the large number of improprieties of the head coach, some of which were highly relevant to our claims," Kerr said. "It was also clear that this is someone who probably feared retaliation and therefore was providing this information anonymously, and that raised a number of concerns about protecting him as a potential witness."

The author could have another reason for not signing the letter: If he did, in fact, alter his testimony, either in a deposition or before a statewide grand jury that investigated the football program, he could face a perjury charge.

But it's possible that the author could be offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for spelling out what he knows.

A source who has been in contact with both the suspected author of the letter and various authorities said immunity has been considered. According to the source, representatives of both the U.S. Attorney's Office and the state attorney general's office have said they would consider granting immunity from prosecution.

However, the source has not been able to reach the person thought to have written the letter to relay that message.

Representatives of the U.S. Attorney's Office and attorney general's office have declined to discuss the letter and any potential investigation into its charges.

Campus voices

Some reactions on the University of Colorado campus Thursday night to the sacking of head football coach Gary Barnett:

• "A fresh start and a new spirit may be good for the team and the stature of the institution as an academic flagship, not a football training program.

"In the early days, he came across as a passionate coach who stressed the role of academics. Over the years, he wasn't as sensitive to all the issues of social justice and equity for players and for students who aren't athletes. In his zeal to defend his program, he got overzealous and stepped out of bounds from time to time."

Spense Havlick, environmental design professor

• "He was fired for the wrong reason. You don't fire someone for losing three games in a row, not when his football players thought he was competent.

"If I were going to fire the guy, I'd go back to the earlier scandals that seemed to be substantive.

"If the university has $1.8 million to settle on this guy, I'm happy to retire for half that amount.

"Now, they can think seriously of discontinuing the sport and go in for club football and club sports."

Paul Levitt, English professor

• "It's been his time to go for a while. I was hoping he'd have the consideration for the university to take the initiative to resign on his own.

"Football plays vastly too big a role at CU. I'd really like to see a university president and chancellor with the courage to say, 'Hey, there's a way to get a balance. Let's drop down one level and still have fun but we don't have to worry about all the corruption and overpaying of people.'

"It would hurt fundraising from some people, but others would give, saying they can be proud of the place again."

Payson Sheets, anthropology professor

• "They shouldn't have fired him as they were going into a bowl game and the players are confused enough. They did so well early, it's wrong to place the blame just on him for three consecutive losses. I was hoping we'd put the (football recruiting scandal) behind us. I thought he'd handled it pretty well."

Russell Selnau, junior math major

• "He should have been fired after he gave women to recruits. It's morally reprehensible to use women as currency to buy recruits."

Jamie Bunting, junior biology major

• "It's ridiculous, the salary he was getting, especially trying to run a West Coast offense that didn't work. I get a stipend of $10 a week for being a resident adviser, and he gets $3 million (for leaving). Where is that $3 million coming from? Our teacher's desk broke a few weeks ago, and it still isn't fixed."

Andrew Jaegle, senior, religious studies

• "We're probably going to have to spend another $3 million to bring in a top-tier coach with all the signing bonuses. I'm tired of spending all that money and then facing top-tier teams where you lose by 67 points."

Ben Ringerman, senior English major

• "I'm glad he's gone. He handled that whole scandal with the female football player (kicker Katie Hnida) pretty inappropriately. For him to be named Big 12 Coach of the Year last year after that was pretty ridiculous."

Alanna DiCola, senior international affairs major

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