Washington court declines to review Pac-12 case
-
Kyle Bonagura, ESPN Staff Writer
The Washington state supreme court will not review a lower court’s decision that granted control of the Pac-12 board of directors to Oregon State and Washington State, the court ruled Friday.
With the ruling, a previous stay of the lower court’s decision has been lifted, granting immediate control of the board to OSU and WSU.
In a joint statement, Oregon State president Jayathi Murthy and Washington State president Kirk Schulz lauded the court’s decision.
“We are pleased with the Washington Supreme Court’s decision today,” they said. “Our work of charting a path forward for the conference that is in the best interest of student-athletes and our wider university communities.”
For months, OSU and WSU have made it clear they intend to rebuild the Pac-12 in the coming years, however, that process could not begin in earnest until this case was settled.
The ruling allows OSU and WSU full discretion to operate the conference as they see fit, pertinently as it comes to revenue distributions. Last week, OSU and WSU voted to block a mid-year conference-wide revenue payment, which they said was to protect the conference against pending liabilities.
It is unclear what immediate steps OSU and WSU will make now that the departing universities have seemingly exhausted their legal remedies.
In a Whitman County courthouse last month, an attorney working on behalf of Washington, Dan Levin, raised the possibility that the departing ten schools could attempt to dissolve the conference.
“It’s simply the fact that the members could decide to dissolve that they wanted,” argued Dan Levin, for Washington. “Of course, in all this time during these proceedings and before, no member has called for such a vote.” Lawyers for OSU and WSU disagreed vehemently with Levin’s interpretation of the law and are confident such action is not legally possible. A statement from the departing ten schools was not immediately available.
Cincinnati Reds left-hander Wade Miley said Friday that he has not been accused of any wrongdoing, one day after reports stated a deposition from a lawsuit alleged he supplied Tyler Skaggs with drugs when both players were with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The deposition is part of a motion for summary judgment filed by the Los Angeles Angels, requesting a lawsuit from the Skaggs family be dismissed.
The deposition from Ryan Hamill, Skaggs’ agent, contains testimony that he was concerned in 2013 about Skaggs’ drug use. Hamill said he and Skaggs’ family confronted Skaggs about his drug use. Skaggs was then in his second season as a teammate of Miley with the Diamondbacks.
“He came clean,” Hamill testified. “He said he had been using — I believe it was Percocets — and he said he got them through Wade Miley.”
Skaggs died on July 1, 2019, at age 27 in a Dallas-area hotel. The autopsy found fentanyl, oxycodone and alcohol in his system.
Miley briefly addressed the issue before Friday’s road game against the Detroit Tigers.
“I hate what happened to Tyler, it sucks. My thoughts are with his family and his friends,” Miley said. “But I’m not going to sit here and talk about things that someone might have said about me or whatnot. I was never a witness for any of this. I was never accused of any wrongdoing.”
Former Angels communications director Eric Kay is serving a 22-year prison sentence in Texas after being found guilty on two charges of providing drugs related on Skaggs’ overdose.
The Athletic reported that the criminal proceedings against Kay included a recorded phone conversation in which Kay told his mother that Miley was a drug source to Skaggs.
Asked if Major League Baseball has contacted him regarding the allegations, Miley said, “I’d rather just focus on the Cincinnati Reds right now and baseball and what I have to do moving forward. I’ve got to get ready for a game on Sunday.”
Miley was mentioned in Kay’s criminal case, but he was never charged with a crime.
Skaggs was traded to the Angels after the 2013 season. He went 28-38 with a 4.41 ERA in 96 career starts.
Miley, 38, is with his eighth big league team and attempting to revive his career after Tommy John surgery in 2024.
Miley has a career 109-99 mark with a 4.09 ERA in 319 games (311 starts) since making his major league debut in 2011. This is his second go-round with the Reds. He was with the team in the 2020 and 2021 seasons, going 12-10 with a 3.55 ERA in 177⅓ innings over 34 starts (32 innings).
The Skaggs family is suing the Angels, contending that high-level team officials, as well as other employees, knew Kay was a drug user and should have known he was Skaggs’ source.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut