Stacy Johnson-Klein Deserved to Get Fired, but Fresno State Athletics Still a Disgrace

ESPN's Outside the Lines did a long piece this morning on the Fresno State athletic department's treatment of its female employees, three of whom have taken the school to court and ended up with multimillion-dollar verdicts or settlements. Here's a look:

The focal point of today's Outside the Lines was former Fresno State women's basketball coach Stacy Johnson-Klein, who says she was fired because she demanded equal treatment for the women's basketball program.

But Fresno State says that's not why she was fired. The school says it fired her for several reasons, the most serious of which is that she used her players to obtain prescription pain medication for her. Johnson-Klein admits to doing that, and in my book, that's an offense for which a coach deserves to get fired.

That's not the whole story, though. There's also former volleyball coach Lindy Vivas, who was awarded $5.85 million for a similar lawsuit. And there's the fact that the school agreed to pay $3.5 million to Diane Milutinovich, a former associate athletic director, to settle her lawsuit.

And there's the fact that most of what Johnson-Klein says about the way women within the Fresno State athletic department were treated as second-class citizens is completely believable. Overall, the hostility to females in the Fresno athletic department was absolutely disgraceful, which is why the women who have taken the school on are three-for-three in winning.

The whole Outside the Lines piece is worth a look. Fresno State alumni and fans -- and the taxpayers who are ultimately on the hook for these multimillion-dollar payouts -- should be outraged.