Jury awards $5 million against NCAA in Alabama booster suit

SCOTTSBORO | A jury awarded $5 million Thursday to a former University of Alabama football booster who claimed the NCAA defamed him when it imposed penalties on the Crimson Tide in 2002.

The jury awarded Ray Keller $3 million in punitive damages, $1 million for mental anguish, $500,000 for economic loss and $500,000 for damage to reputation.

Keller, a timber dealer and fan whom the university severed ties with because of the probe, argued that the NCAA slandered and libeled him during the announcement of penalties by referring to him and others as "rogue boosters," ''parasites" and "pariahs."

The jury of nine women and three men deliberated an hour Wednesday and about five more Thursday before ruling against the NCAA.

Jurors, who heard three weeks of testimony, had asked for a tape recorder so they could re-listen to a tape of former NCAA infractions committee chairman Tom Yeager announcing penalties against Alabama nearly six years ago.

Keller maintained the sanctioning organization wrongly lumped him in with other boosters who were accused of making improper contacts and payments to recruits in the 1990s.

Denying he did anything wrong, Keller sought $33.5 million — $556,775 for four business deals he claims he lost; $5 million for mental anguish; $10 million for damage to his good name and $20 million to punish the NCAA.

The NCAA asked jurors to reject Keller's claims, portraying him as an Alabama fan who lost all perspective on the game, gave "$100 handshakes" to a recruit and had improper contacts with other Tide recruits.

The committee that imposed penalties on Alabama, chaired by Yeager, didn't have any malice toward Keller and simply acted on evidence, the NCAA said.

The NCAA didn't use the name of Keller or other boosters in announcing penalties against Alabama, but their names appeared in news accounts and the university sent Keller a letter barring him from its athletics program.

A separate lawsuit filed in Tuscaloosa over the investigation resulted in a $30 million verdict against a former recruiting analyst who provided information to the NCAA, but that judgment was overturned on appeal.

The suit by former Alabama assistant coach Ronnie Cottrell also named the NCAA as a defendant, but a judge dismissed the organization from that case.