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Louisville reaches settlement with former HC Rick Pitino

Mikhail Serbin / Euroleague Basketball / Getty

Louisville voted Wednesday to approve terms of a settlement with former head coach Rick Pitino, according to Jeff Greer of The Athletic.

The school will not pay Pitino any money as part of the agreement and his personnel file will be updated to state he resigned on Oct. 3, 2017, Greer adds.

Pitino, 67, was dismissed in 2017 after 17 years as Cardinals head coach when it was discovered the program used funds to inappropriately recruit a player. Athletic director Tom Jurich was also let go in the aftermath.

In response to his dismissal, Pitino had filed a $40-million breach-of-contract lawsuit but is now withdrawing the suit.

"Today I move on to a new chapter in my life. Against my lawyer's advice I'm dropping my lawsuit with ULAA," Pitino said in a statement. "I am very proud of the many accomplishments my teams achieved at Louisville. I'm so thankful and honored to coach such dedicated athletes.

"I'm also disappointed in how it ended. But as head coach I am held responsible for the actions of all team members. I still have so much passion for the game and so many goals I want to achieve. From this day forward I start my climb."

Louisville and Pitino released a joint statement as part of the settlement in which the school thanks Pitino for his work over his tenure.

For 17 years, Coach Pitino ran a program that combined excellence on the court with a commitment to the program's student athletes, their academic achievement, and their futures in and out of basketball. Nevertheless, there were NCAA infractions during his term which led to serious consequences for the University. Although these infractions may not have occurred at Coach Pitino's direction or with his knowledge, the problems leading to the NCAA infractions happened under his leadership. We thank Coach Pitino for his years of service to the University of Louisville basketball program and wish him well. Coach Pitino and the University of Louisville have mutually agreed to dismiss their legal claims against each other, designate his departure as a resignation, and move forward.

Louisville was one of the first schools implicated in the NCAA corruption scandal that began to unfurl in 2017.

Court documents alleged that Adidas secretly handed $100,000 to the family of an undisclosed recruit in order to convince him to join the Cardinals and suggested Pitino had knowledge of the arrangement. The player was later identified as former five-star recruit Brian Bowen, who enrolled at the school but did not play for the Cardinals. He is now on a two-way contract with the Indiana Pacers after spending the 2018-19 season with the Sydney Kings in Australia.

Louisville was already under probation at the time after it was discovered that former director of basketball operations Andre McGee had arranged for prostitutes to engage in sexual acts with the team's current and prospective players. The NCAA later punished the school by stripping it of its 2013 national title and 2012 Final Four appearance, and Pitino was set to be suspended for the first five games of the 2017-18 season due to a lack of oversight before the scandal broke.

After losing his job at Louisville, Pitino ventured over to Europe where he took charge of Greek club Panathinaikos for one season, winning both the Greek league and the domestic cup. He announced in June that he was stepping down from the role in the hopes of returning to the NBA.

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