Dan Dakich is standing by his claim that former WVU president David Hardesty threatened him during his eight day tenure as the head basketball coach at WVU to keep quiet on allegations surrounding former player Jonathan Hargett. Dakich said in a recent New York Times article that Hardesty told him he would “destroy him” if he went any further with the allegations surrounding Hargett.
Hardesty, however, denied the accusations on Monday’s MetroNews Talkline. Then on Tuesday, Dakich reiterated his claims on his radio show that airs on ESPN 1070 The Fan.
“My wife, who was with me then, stands up and says to David Hardesty, ‘What do you mean destroy us,’” Dakich said. “…My actual thought was, ‘You know what, if you come across this desk, it’ll take me two seconds to knock the hell out of you.
"Then Hardesty goes into a story about Gale Catlett and what a great man he was," Dakich said. "My response was, ‘I’m sure he’s a great man, but I’ve been here 24 minutes and I’ve found a laundry list. You guys have been here 24 years and you’ve never found anything.”
Dakich claims in the article that Hargett told him he had been promised $20,000 a year for three years and that he had not been paid the full amount.
“I will flatly deny that I knew of any activity related to payments to Hargett or that I tried to cover them up or that I threatened him in order to cover them up," Hardesty told MetroNews. "I had no reason to do that. My goal was to keep him and to run an honest program. I think the record speaks for itself during my years here."
Dakich’s reaction to that?
“Hardesty reacted as I expected him to, very ‘lawyerish,’” Dakich said.
Dakich has received criticism from some that he’s rehashing the story for ratings on his show, to which he says isn’t the case.
“It doesn’t matter if a million people in West Virginia are listening, it doesn’t help me at all. There’s like 500 people,” Dakich said. “It terms of web hits, if you people in West Virginia are listening, I guess that helps the station, but this has nothing to do with ratings. This is an interesting story and it actually in my opinion might be the most important story – Jonathan Hargrett’s – that you can read relative to NCAA recruiting and how it happens.”