UVA Lacrosse: Lars Tiffany files suit over botched contract extension

Former UVA Lacrosse coach Lars Tiffany has filed a $1.4 million lawsuit against the University of Virginia, alleging that the school is reneging on a three-year contract extension that he signed earlier this year.

So much for the suits at UVA having the common sense to let this one go away quietly.

“We made every effort to resolve this matter privately and amicably. Litigation was never our goal,” Tiffany said in a statement that was sent to SticksInLacrosse.com.

“Unfortunately, after being advised that the University was preparing to seek declaratory relief regarding the contract, my family and I were left with no meaningful alternative but to protect our rights through the legal process,” Tiffany said.

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ICYMI

• UVA Lacrosse: Lars Tiffany is out as head coach, and no one knows why, for sure
• UVA Lacrosse: Williams stays in-house, names Kevin Cassese head coach
• Lars Tiffany says he signed the extension: UVA Lacrosse is a total mess now
• UVA Lacrosse: Cassese hires Vermont head coach Chris Feifs to staff
• UVA Lacrosse: Kevin Cassese signs for a lot less than Lars Tiffany was getting
• Updates on UVA Lacrosse staff contract terms, Lars Tiffany extension

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The total asked for in the suit – $1.4 million – would come to $466,666 per year, which would have been a nice raise for Tiffany, who was due to get $377,206 in the final year of the five-year extension that he signed in 2021.

After cutting ties with Tiffany, the school hired his top assistant, Kevin Cassese, and quite obviously low-balled him on the pay – Cassese is getting $285,000 a year under the terms of his three-year deal.

Per the reporting from SticksInLacrosse.com, Tiffany was presented with an offer sheet for a three-year extension last summer, but Steve Pritzker, the deputy athletics director at UVA, reached out to the coach to tell him that a mistake had been made, and that Pritzker said the AD, Carla Williams, had asked Pritzker to see how the year ended for the lacrosse program before doing anything with the proposed extension.

Tiffany, signing the offer sheet, had, according to the suit, put Pritzker “in a tough spot.”

Oopsie.

The SticksInLacrosse.com report has it that the position of UVA Athletics is that it had brought up a possible fourth year as part of the extension, amounting to a counteroffer, making the original three-year offer sheet no longer valid.

On that point, the Tiffany side says that the two sides going back and forth about a possible fourth year did not constitute a counteroffer, and that while UVA Athletics could still terminate Tiffany, he should be owed the money outlined in the offer sheet.

I wouldn’t want to be Steve Pritzker right about now.