To the editor:

According to a recent article in the Journal-World, Kansas Athletics Inc. settled with former KU football coach David Beaty for $2.55 million when they owed him $3 million to settle his contract. Awhile back, the Journal-World stated in an article that Kansas Athletics had spent almost half a million in legal fees to fight Beaty’s lawsuit. You don’t need a very sharp pencil to figure out that, regardless of how the KU attorneys tried to fashion this settlement, it was, at best, a draw. KU could have saved itself a lot of expense, embarrassment and bad press if it had just paid the man off in the first place.

My old Oklahoma father once told me that lawsuits are like two old farmers fighting over the ownership of a Jersey cow. One fellow is yanking on her tail, the other man is pulling on her horns, and the lawyers sit in the middle and get all the milk!

James Barnes,

Lawrence