Sports Illustrated Settles With Coach Price

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) – Time Inc. has settled a $20 million defamation suit filed by former Alabama and current UTEPfootball coach Mike Price over a Sports Illustrated article about a night of drinking at a topless bar in Florida.

The publisher on Monday did not disclose terms of the settlement with Price, who now coaches at Texas-El Paso. “Mr. Price asserts that certain events were falsely reported in the story. Sports Illustrated continues to stand behind its story,” Time Inc., said in a statement.

The suit was “amicably resolved,” the statement said. Time Inc. owns Sports Illustrated. Price was expected to discuss the agreement at a news conference later Monday in Texas. His attorney, Steven Heninger, did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment.

Price sued the magazine claiming he was defamed and slandered by a story detailing his actions the night he visited a topless bar in Pensacola, Fla., in April 2003. Price acknowledged getting heavily intoxicated, but denied allegations of sex at his hotel that the magazine reported.

Alabama fired Price a few days before the article was published. Rick McCabe, a spokesman for Time Inc., said the settlement also resolves Price’s claims against reporter Don Yaeger, who wrote the Sports Illustrated article and still works for the magazine.

The lawsuit was closely watched in part because it developed into a fight over the magazine’s right to protect confidential sources it said were used in the report. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that Alabama law did not protect Sports Illustrated from having to identify a confidential source whose identity was sought by Heninger.

The court said the law specifically protected newspapers and broadcast news reports, but not magazines. McCabe declined comment on whether the magazine or Yaeger had turned over the names of sources used in the story.