NCAA calls Texas Tech football QB Brendan Sorsby a 'serial violator'
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An attorney for the NCAA said in a Lubbock court that an addiction alibi is no grounds for allowing Brendan Sorsby to rejoin the Texas Tech football team this season. If Sorsby is permitted to do so, the attorney said, it would make the NCAA the first major sports league in the United States to tacitly approve a player betting on his own team.
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"Turning this on its head and saying the NCAA is now the first league in America that allows you, without punishment, to bet on its own contests, that's a reputable harm to the NCAA," Taylor Askew said. "This would be the first league in America that does that. ... We should not say for the first time serial gambling is OK."
Sorsby, an acknowledged gambling addict, was not present at the two-hour hearing on Monday, June 1, in Lubbock's 99th District Court. He's seeking an injunction allowing him to play this season after the NCAA ruled him permanently ineligible.
The NCAA found that Sorsby made thousands of impermissible wagers totaling at least $90,000 over the past four years and that he did so at each of his college stops: in 2022 and 2023 at Indiana, in 2024 and 2025 at Cincinnati and continuing since January at Texas Tech. All of it violates NCAA rules that prohibit gambling on any college or professional sport the NCAA sponsors.
"You don't say, 'This guy who got a DUI was an alcoholic, so let's mitigate that.' No. He's violated the law," Askew said. "Can he get treatment? Sure, and we hope he does, and he should, but that doesn't mean that the rule wasn't broken."
Sorsby recently completed a monthlong addiction treatment program in Arizona.
"The whole case [for an injunction]," Askew said, "rises on him being such a serial violator of the rules that it somehow creates some exception to the consequences. That doesn't make any sense."
Presiding Judge Ken Curry heard two hours of arguments from Jeffrey Kessler, the lead plaintiff attorney, and Askew, who's leading the defense for the NCAA. Curry adjourned the court shortly after 11 a.m., with no indication of when he'd rule. In addition to oral arguments, attorneys presented him with a large quantity of exhibits to consider.
Kessler began his 48-minute opening statement by telling the court the NCAA has failed to live up to its contractual commitments, both in its constitution and in its regulations regarding the reinstatement process. He said the NCAA is violating its own principle in Sorsby's case to not discriminate against or disparage an athlete because of his physical or mental health. In addition to the gambling addiction, Sorsby's been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.
Kessler cited a supporting statement from an addiction clinician that Sorsby's ongoing recovery could best be achieved with the structure his team provides. "This case, I think, is badly misunderstood by a lot of people," Kessler said after the hearing. "It's very important that everyone understand that it is undisputed that (Sorsby) never did any betting to compromise the integrity of his team, the bets he made on his team was when he was not participating in that team and he never bet again to do that.
"And what this case is about is when you have no threat to competitive integrity, but you have a mental illness of gambling addiction, which is plaguing — plaguing — student-athletes across the country, the NCAA said in its policies it would consider that it would support the athlete and instead they want to punish him. That's wrong. We think it's illegal and we hope the court will agree."
A court filing from the NCAA on Friday showed that during the first two months of the 2022 season, Sorsby made at least 40 impermissible wagers on the Indiana football team or prop bets on Hoosiers players, all to exceed expectations.
At the time, he was a freshman, on the scout team with no chance of getting into games. Kessler said Sorsby did not attempt to influence, alter or compromise the outcome of those games. When he was promoted to backup status in November 2022, Sorsby ceased gambling on IU football.
However, Askew took issue with Kessler's assertion that the NCAA didn't consider Sorsby to pose an integrity risk.
"There's been a lot made about, well, the NCAA has stipulated there were no integrity concerns," Askew told the judge. "Respectfully, that is Mr. Sorsby creating his own definition of integrity concerns.
"If you look at footnote 1 on the second page of the stipulated facts, it talks about how Mr. Sorsby placed bets on opposing players who were playing against Indiana's basketball team to overachieve during the game. That's an integrity concern. That's betting against your institution."
A Texas Tech request for Sorsby's reinstatement, filed May 19, was denied by the NCAA on May 22. Texas Tech filed an appeal on Friday, May 29. Kessler called the NCAA's handling of the case "arbitrary and capricious" regarding the denial of Sorsby's reinstatement.
"The chance for reinstatement, which applies in this case, is that the NCAA Division I Committee on Student-Athlete Reinstatement will use the student-first philosophy," Kessler said, "ensuring the individual student-athlete is at the forefront of each decision. ... They committed to evaluate the totality of the circumstances in each case so you reach an outcome that considers the wellbeing of the involved student-athlete.
"That's the commitment they violated, and all we have to show on a motion is that we have evidence that tends to support that."
Should Curry deny the injunction, Sorsby could petition the NFL for a supplemental draft. That deadline is coming up in three weeks.
Kessler told the judge, however, that upholding the NCAA's ban would cause irreparable harm to Sorsby, inasmuch as he'd miss his last year of college competition. He said that's a unique experience, unlike the NFL.
"There will be no harm to the NCAA [in letting Sorsby play]," Kessler said, "except its hurt pride and its arrogance that it doesn't want any court to tell it what to do, even though, frankly, the Supreme Court has told it, it has to follow what the courts tell it to do."
Askew said "there's no victory lap" by the NCAA in taking down Sorsby. No one wants to be in the situation, he said. Rules are rules, though, he said, and Sorsby has already received an unwarranted benefit by continuing to play as he gambled.
"He's played for Indiana," Askew said. "He's played for Cincinnati. He's transferred to Texas Tech. He should not have been allowed to. The only reason that he has been is because the substance of his actions were not found out until law enforcement tipped off a sportsbook, who tipped off the NCAA.
"So if we're talking about avoiding irreparable harm, he should not even have been playing these last few years."
In countering an argument from Sorsby's support team that athletes with gambling addictions won't come forward to seek help in the future if Sorsby's banned, Askew said, "Mr. Sorsby didn't come forward. He got caught, and when he got caught, then he went to treatment and that's the first time you heard about this mental health concern. ... He was found out by law enforcement and that's what triggered this."
Texas Tech announced Sorsby's taking leave from the team to enter gambling-addiction treatment on April 27. The timestamp on Tech's announcement was identical to the timestamp on an ESPN story that revealed the NCAA had opened an investigation into Sorsby's gambling.
That came 10 days after Sorsby threw four touchdown passes in the Red Raiders' spring game.
The Avalanche-Journal's Gabriel Monte contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: NCAA: 'We should not say serial gambling is OK' in Brendan Sorsby case