College, Ex-Coach Settle Lawsuit

A former Ventura College basketball coach has settled a lawsuit with the community college district, it was announced Wednesday.

The settlement marked the end of a legal dispute in which former Pirates coach Glen Hefferman contended that college officials deceived him when he was hired by failing to tell him that the team was under investigation by a regional athletic board for recruiting violations.

Ventura County Community College District officials filed a cross-complaint against Hefferman, which was included in the settlement.

“Both sides have amicably agreed to settlement terms and are pleased to have this behind them,” the district said in a statement.

The three-sentence statement was the only comment the district would make on the issue. All terms of the agreement, including any payments made, remain confidential.

Reached at his home in the Midwest, Hefferman said he was thrilled about the outcome of his lawsuit, though he refused to provide any settlement details.

“I love the people of the city of Ventura, but I do not wish on my worst enemy the suffering that Ventura College put me, my family and the 20 wonderful young men who came to play basketball for me through,” said Hefferman, a Chicago native who recently became head basketball coach at Malcolm X Community College in Chicago.

In 1997, Hefferman gave up a coaching position at Columbia College in Sonora and came to Ventura.

According to his original lawsuit, Hefferman maintained that he was not told when he was hired that the program was facing severe sanctions and prohibition from postseason play for violating state athletic rules, including providing players with money and free meals.

But two months after he began teaching, the Western State Conference slapped the program with heavy sanctions and a two-year probation.

The lawsuit, filed last year in Ventura County Superior Court, claimed that Hefferman was misled by the district and wrongfully discharged and discriminated against. He left the college after sanctions were imposed.

The settlement is the district’s second with a basketball coach in as many years. In December 1997, the district agreed to pay Virgil Watson $70,000 after the former coach protested his firing.

After a two-season hiatus, the college relaunched a basketball program in May when Greg Winslow was hired away from San Bernardino Valley College as the head coach.