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7/07/2020 1:15 pm  #1


Patrick Nero

This is an extension of discussion on ML from yesterday. Since there's little talk of basketball going on I thought I would also give an update on Nero. As with ML, I don't personally know Nero but know one individual close to him who still has contact with him.

Unlike ML, Nero kind of disappeared and took all his social media off public access. Nero was forced to resign in December of 2017 - almost 3 years ago. He was given an incentive to go away quietly (shortly after GW settled with ML) to the tune of around $1.3 million. If Nero made that much imagine what GW had to pay ML to settle instead of blowing the lid on all this in a trial?

After he resigned, he went out to CA (Bay area) for awhile where he has family. He started a consulting business but doubt he had any clients due to the circumstances surrounding his departure. As part of his attempt to rehab his image, he talked his way onto the Board of Directors of The Grassroots Organization - which has been non-existent and done very little the last several years.

Has Nero paid the price the last 3 years and is he deserving of another job in athletic administration? My personal opinion is NO. I still hold him accountable for the place we find ourselves in many years later. 

 

7/08/2020 9:10 am  #2


Re: Patrick Nero

Did Nero really leave GW with $1.3 million in his pocket?  Am not doubting you Joel but is anyone else here in a position to confirm this?  If true, I am in complete amazement.

We can't refer to Nero's departure as a firing with cause since it was announced as a resignation but the circumstances certainly had the look of one.  ML's side of the story had gotten back to President LeBlanc who wanted this entire matter investigated.  From there, many if not all of the anecdotes from the Deadspin article were revealed.  So was the video.  Nero's resignation was in the middle of a school year, and was very sudden.  He would be gone within two weeks.  He offered to remain a resource to the athletic department in the future yet I don't believe he was ever taken up on that offer.

Simply put, LeBlanc wanted him gone and fast.  Allowing him to walk away with $1.3 million as a going away present seems very unlikely under these circumstances unless PN threatened legal action and the school just wanted to again avoid this at virtually all costs.  How do you give an athletic director who allegedly did all of the things that Deadspin described $1.3 million?  As the school likes to say these days, "Only at GW."

 

7/08/2020 10:38 am  #3


Re: Patrick Nero

C'mon Gwmayhem! You've been around here long enough to know that GW just rolls over when threatened with legal action. Penders got his full salary, ML apparently got his full salary and now apparently Nero. The fact is you are going to get a payday if you threaten GW with legal action so it would not surprise me at all if Nero got one.

 

7/08/2020 10:45 am  #4


Re: Patrick Nero

Respectfully, why are we rehashing this?  What happened happened.  The effects of it were felt for a long time.  Now, we are in a new era.  We have an outstanding new coach, a program that appears to be healed (or healing) from their self-inflicted wounds, and an entire roster of exciting players.  We have a bright future.  

Please, let's just let this die.  If this is the best topic we can come up with because there is no new basketball news, then we don't deserve to have this message board.  I should talk to the guy who runs this thing about that.

B.

 

7/08/2020 11:24 am  #5


Re: Patrick Nero

BGF, to borrow your word, respectfully, this is the first I had ever heard about a $1.3 million going away present.  I do not recall reading or hearing about this anywhere.  This new information differentiates this from a rehash.  If this information is true, I am thoroughly disgusted about it.  

GWRising, I sense your post was a bit tongue-in-cheek despite being truthful but I'll state the obvious:  The circumstances that led to Penders, Lonergan and Nero leaving school were all completely different from one another and by no means should have been handled the same way.  That said, yes, I recognize much truth in your post.

 

7/08/2020 11:37 am  #6


Re: Patrick Nero

Gwmayhem wrote:

BGF, to borrow your word, respectfully, this is the first I had ever heard about a $1.3 million going away present.  I do not recall reading or hearing about this anywhere.  This new information differentiates this from a rehash.  If this information is true, I am thoroughly disgusted about it.  

GWRising, I sense your post was a bit tongue-in-cheek despite being truthful but I'll state the obvious:  The circumstances that led to Penders, Lonergan and Nero leaving school were all completely different from one another and by no means should have been handled the same way.  That said, yes, I recognize much truth in your post.

I agree Gwmayhem. In my mind, only one of those guys deserved a payout and his initials are not TP or PN.

 

7/08/2020 11:44 am  #7


Re: Patrick Nero

GWMayhem, I couldn't believe Nero was paid off to disappear either. Everyone in the GW community knows about it - google gwhatchet - it was a headline story based on last year's tax filings reported by the school required by law. 

BGF - I agree we are in a new era. It's been almost 4 years since ML has been gone, 3 years since Nero has been gone. None of us know why the dude can't move on. Maybe it's because we have sucked the last 4 years and have been trending down since. Maybe it's because dude wasn't comp'd tickets by ML. You should be used to him by now after our experience on GWHoops. At least he's limited to just 1 name now (that we know of).

     Thread Starter
 

7/08/2020 1:35 pm  #8


Re: Patrick Nero

Thanks Joel.  The Hatchet had this news about a month ago.  I missed it then so thanks for bringing it to our attention.

GWRising, OK, I'll ask.  Why did Penders, a coach whose team during his final season had two brawls with Tennessee and Duquesne, who had 4 players make $1,400 worth of phone calls while using his son's long distance code under his watch, and who recruited a player who committed violent crimes while at GW and HID THIS INFORMATION from his athletic director, deserve to be paid for the final THREE YEARS of his contract upon resigning? 

 

 

7/08/2020 2:37 pm  #9


Re: Patrick Nero

Gwmayhem wrote:

Thanks Joel.  The Hatchet had this news about a month ago.  I missed it then so thanks for bringing it to our attention.

GWRising, OK, I'll ask.  Why did Penders, a coach whose team during his final season had two brawls with Tennessee and Duquesne, who had 4 players make $1,400 worth of phone calls while using his son's long distance code under his watch, and who recruited a player who committed violent crimes while at GW and HID THIS INFORMATION from his athletic director, deserve to be paid for the final THREE YEARS of his contract upon resigning? 

 

I think it was 2 years not 3 but the answer is simply this ... GW caved. They did not want a public spat because all of the information you mentioned would be front and center in the WAPO and TP was represented by one of the top lawyers in Texas who would have probably loved to sue the crap out of GW - think his name was Roy Minton.. It was a decision made at the top of the University. It was not made by Kvancz - he didn't have that authority. That was a Trachtenberg and Chernak call.
 

 

7/08/2020 2:52 pm  #10


Re: Patrick Nero

It is now 4 full seasons since ML has coached, and I am still pained by this, thinking where we could have been had he been stayed (notwithstanding what some others may think, the class that he recruited but never to to coach was quite good) as opposed to where we are now.  My anger at the handling of the situation will not subside until we have in fact turned it around.    I like JC and remain guardedly optimistic, but we have hardly regained relevance, yet alone the heights as to where ML took us.  I know I need to get over it...2 coaches and nearly an entire Athletic Department later, but watching us lose to bad teams in a nearly empty house is not really what I signed on for.

 

7/08/2020 3:02 pm  #11


Re: Patrick Nero

GW has continued to make horrible and very expensive decisions for the last 2 decades now. It was not only an incompetent administration but also an incompetent GC advising the university.

In Lonergan's case, they backed the wrong horse and fired ML instead of Nero - I have to think the sexual orientation of Nero and the accusations of him fiddling with students had something to do with it - all corroborated a year later thanks to Deadspin. Lonergan, like Penders before him, goes out and hires the same firm that represented the UVA Chancellor over the false Rolling Stone Magazine rape story (I think it was the Clair & Locke firm). Right before a trial is scheduled to start, and right after LeBlanc takes over and has time to dig in, Lonergan is paid off with a non-disclosure agreement (to this day I would love to hear his side of the story).

A few months later, Deadspin breaks and Nero's dirty little secrets are exposed. He quietly goes away with what we now know was a $1.3 million pay-off. I heard he hired a female employment law attorney very active in the LBGTQ community years before - smart move if true.

With all these payoffs it's no wonder GW is a sinking ship, athletically and financially. Now with COVID, lets see how many of those NY'ers want to pay $60,000 a year tuition to GW to take on-line courses.

     Thread Starter
 

7/08/2020 3:35 pm  #12


Re: Patrick Nero

GWRising, TP's deal was for 6 years and he worked 3 of them.  So GW paid him for three additional years at approximately $450,000/year.  The fact that he tried to hide the Cosby situation from Kvancz was reason enough not to pay him an extra dime.

LSF, you're not alone in your thought process.  We all know that ML was the right guy, the school screwed up, and we've been paying the price ever since.  You are entitled to a "I'll believe it when I see it" point of view, but for now, the best we can do is ask ourselves whether we feel we now have the right guy in JC.  So far, despite the record last season, I have found more evidence to suggest "yes we have" than "no we haven't." 

 

7/08/2020 4:00 pm  #13


Re: Patrick Nero

Not sure you are right on that Gwmayhem. TP was paid $500,000 base. I believe the original deal was 5 years with a 6th year school option. Could be wrong but that is what I was told. The settlement was $1 million which I believe represented those 2 years.

Last edited by GWRising (7/08/2020 4:01 pm)

 

7/08/2020 4:19 pm  #14


Re: Patrick Nero

Here is an article from The Hartford Courant on TP's hiring by Houston.  says he left three years into a 6 year deal.

https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-xpm-2008-01-15-0801150400-story.html

And, here is The Hatchet article on the resignation, citing three years left on the contract

https://www.gwhatchet.com/2001/04/23/penders-resigns-amid-turmoil/
 

 

7/08/2020 4:45 pm  #15


Re: Patrick Nero

Just remember to the novice reporter 3 years could be 2 years and an option year.

 

7/09/2020 8:58 am  #16


Re: Patrick Nero

Yes, GWRising, I anticipated this response from you.  That's why I also included the article by the professional writer at The Hartford Courant.  He got the phone card detail right.  He got the Cosby legal issue right.  He said that Penders had three years to go but GW paid for all of them due to a contract clause.  And for the record, the Hatchet reporter got everything right as well.

If it were a five year deal with GW holding the option for a 6th, there's no way the school would have willfully paid for the 6th year under these circumstances.  As far as the contract clause is concerned, I can only speculate that language was put into the contract indicating that TP would receive his full contract value regardless of whether he resigned, fired without cause, or fired with cause.  Am fairly certain that JK talked Trachtenberg/Chernak into allowing TP to save face by referring to this as a resignation rather than a firing.  In reality, it most definitely should have been a firing with cause.  Willfully withholding a player's very serious legal issues from the school?  How could this not be?

 

7/09/2020 2:46 pm  #17


Re: Patrick Nero

Gwmayhem, you have parts but not all of the story correct. I am fairly confident Penders received about $1 million as a settlement. Had he been paid for 3 years at $450,000 he would have received $1,350,000. No way the present value discounting was great enough to turn $1,350,000 into $1,000,000 over 3 years. Do I think Penders deserved any of this money? No. I already told you that but GW made a decision otherwise.

How did he get it? GW has strict rules about who can settle legal cases. In fact this one went right up to the Board of Trustees. It was recommended by Chernak and Trachtenberg. Kvancz was taken out of the process early and had no say - they told him to focus on the process of hiring a new coach. The main reason it was done was exactly for the reason you state - GW did not want the legal issues all over the news and thought that by quickly getting rid of Penders they could minimize any damage if any did blow up further. However, they also did not want a fight with Penders either as you are right his contract was favorable to him but not quite as favorable as you have stated. It would have been a close call legally. So GW did what it always does and caved quickly just to move on.
 

Last edited by GWRising (7/09/2020 2:46 pm)

 

7/09/2020 4:39 pm  #18


Re: Patrick Nero

I am basing the contract details on what two writers, one a professional journalist and the other, a student reporter who covered the team all season, had indicated was the case. I posted each article so it really shouldn't be difficult to comprehend where I am receiving this information.   If I'm wrong, then both of them are wrong too.  Or, perhaps it's conceivable that both writers are correct and whoever told you was wrong?

 

7/09/2020 4:41 pm  #19


Re: Patrick Nero

Gwmayhem wrote:

I am basing the contract details on what two writers, one a professional journalist and the other, a student reporter who covered the team all season, had indicated was the case. I posted each article so it really shouldn't be difficult to comprehend where I am receiving this information.   If I'm wrong, then both of them are wrong too.  Or, perhaps it's conceivable that both writers are correct and whoever told you was wrong?

Doubt it 

 

7/10/2020 10:01 am  #20


Re: Patrick Nero

You are far more like Trump than you know.  

 

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