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Promises To Keep? Coaches Tubby Smith, Jimmy Williams And Lessons Learned In 2012, Adam Epstein, Henry Lowenstein

Adam Epstein

The primary purpose of this article is to explore the 2012 legal decision that stemmed from an employment-related fiasco in 2007 when Coach Orlando Henry “Tubby” Smith first formed his staff at UM and asked coach Jimmy Williams from Oklahoma State University to join him as an assistant coach. Smith’s offer, however, proved not to be a legally binding offer, at least according to the Minnesota Supreme Court, because Smith apparently did not have the authority to make the offer in the first place. In fact, Jimmy Williams was declared by the Minnesota Supreme Court majority to have been sophisticated …