It started like Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon, Britney Spears and K-Fed.
It ended the same way, too.
Ball State University's whirlwind love affair, marriage and divorce with former men's basketball coach Ronny Thompson is finally over; and men's basketball coach Billy Taylor moved in to take care of Thompson's orphans.
Irreconcilable differences is the only citable reason for the divorce. The settlement states that neither party admits wrongdoing. Also, both parties agreed to not file any lawsuits and to suspend any pending lawsuits pertaining to the incidents at Ball State during Thompson's stay.
The out-of-court agreement resolved the issues discovered during an external investigation and preempted lawsuits with a $200,000 settlement.
As poor college students, $200,000 seems like an outlandish amount of money. However, it's only about one year of what Thompson's salary was. If Thompson would have finished out his contract, the university would have paid his salary for an additional four years.
In the grand scheme of things, Ball State escaped relatively unscathed and gets to move beyond this chapter of its life.
The bad publicity about racist comments and the lack of balls for the basketball team can fade into memory as the university and team looks forward to bigger and better things.
Goodbye Ronny, it was nice while it lasted ... kind of.
If we ever need a one-night stand we'll tune in to a Wizards game.
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