By Clare Maness, J.D.
While the Indiana University at Bloomington Hoosiers celebrate their commanding victory at the football national championships, the school’s sister institution in Indianapolis is facing sporting scandal and disruption in the form of litigation threats on one side and a full lawsuit on the other, with former basketball coach Paul Corsaro at the heart of both legal controversies. In a way, one could say the matters are simple. Essentially, Corsaro served as head coach of the men’s basketball program at Indiana University at Indianapolis (casually referred to as IU Indy) from March 2024 until May 2025, when he was terminated following the threat of a lawsuit against the school by six former basketball athletes. These latter athletes claimed Corsaro abused them. The school terminated Corsaro because of the allegations. Corsaro sought counsel and notified the school that he would be claiming contractual damages, reputational damages, emotional and mental distress damages, and other monetary damages based on the school’s supposed reckless and defamatory statements that cast him in a false light and its wrongful termination of him. The former players then did indeed brought suit against the school, and now the struggle between the school and its former coach and former players has intensified, giving scholars and practitioners interested in player wellbeing and policing in sport yet another case to watch and another outcome to speculate on.
Corsaro’s Claims
Corsaro’s story starts with his efforts to turn a losing team around. In a tort-claims letter sent to IU Indy representatives at the end of October, Corsaro’s attorney has described Corsaro’s longstanding commitment to the game of basketball, his performance as a coach for other teams, and his efforts to turn the IU Indy team’s performance around after he joined the program in 2024 (Korin, 2025). Allegedly, the Indiana University president at the time told Corsaro that the team “needed to win and needed to win now,” and the team’s record was dismal when Corsaro signed on, with a 20% win record over the previous five seasons and an overall record of 29-141 (Korin, 2025, 2). For his part, Corsaro did start turning the team around, helping the program achieve a double-digit win season for the first time in six seasons (with a record of 10–22) and claim victory in six Horizon League conference games, which was more than the team had won in the previous three seasons combined (Korin, 2025). In the classroom, for the first semester of the 2024–2025 school year, players posted the highest grade-point average in team history and were honored with a 2024–2025 Team Academic Excellence Award by the National Association of Basketball Coaches; six players were named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Honors Court (Korin, 2025).
This appearance of a seemingly strong state of affairs, however, disintegrated when university officials received a letter from six former team players in April 2025, alleging misconduct on the part of Corsaro. The players were no longer with the school, having transferred, graduated, or been released from the team. Corsaro had not been informed of any of the allegations. In response to the letter, the athletic director requested an investigation, and investigators interviewed four of the former players, talked to Corsaro, met with other staff members, and reviewed significant amounts of practice film. Throughout the investigation, the athletic director supposedly expressed support for Corsaro (Korin, 2025).
When the investigation wrapped up in May 2025, the final report from that work seems to have substantiated only two of the allegations the former players had made, namely that Corsaro cursed during team practices and that he had bumped a player during a practice. Corsaro has claimed that the athletic director explicitly encouraged the use of profanity throughout the 2024–2025 season, and that the supposed bump of a player at a practice session occurred during a drill when Corsaro tried to show a player how to properly absorb contact when attempting to score under the basket. Regardless, in May 2025, the school informed Corsaro that it would terminate him, alleging cause for such action. The university also issued a statement to the IndyStar, a media outlet, saying that it was dismissing Corsaro because his behavior did not live up to the school’s values and standards with regard to the treatment of student-athletes (Korin, 2025). With this perspective, Corsaro’s attorney issued the claims letter to the school.
The Former Players’ Claims
Then, as one might imagine, the former basketball players, whose original letter to the school precipitated the investigation into Corsaro’s conduct toward the team, did not stay in the shadows with mere threats of litigation; they sued. On December 15, 2025, they filed a complaint in Indiana’s Marion County Superior Court, claiming physical and psychological abuse, harassment, bullying, and contractual breaches (McClain v. Indiana University Board of Trustees, 2025). They have claimed that “Corsaro also choked, shoved, shoulder slammed, chest slammed, and otherwise physically harmed all Plaintiffs” (McClain v. Indiana University Board of Trustees, 2025, compl., 4, ¶ 23). One plaintiff has said that he “repeatedly contemplated suicide because of Corsaro’s constant degradations” (McClain v. Indiana University Board of Trustees, 2025, compl., 5, ¶ 38). All of the plaintiffs have alleged that, “[a]s a direct and proximate result of Corsaro’s abusive conduct,” they have “suffered grievous emotional harm and distress, physical injury, lost future scholarship opportunities, lost future name-image-likeness and other income, loss of earning potential, and other damages” (McClain v. Indiana University Board of Trustees, 2025, compl., 6, ¶ 43).
The complaint only named the school and its board of trustees as defendants. The claims presented revolve around breach of contract and negligence and the school’s alleged negligent supervision of Corsaro and its failure to adequately monitor its coach (McClain v. Indiana University Board of Trustees, 2025).
The Upshot
Ultimately, it looks as though IU Indy will be facing litigation on two fronts: the former players’ action will proceed, and Corsaro seems poised to file suit. One can argue multiple takeaways from these circumstances, and one can observe here an example of the way abuse, corruption, or ethical allegations often, unsurprisingly, go hand-in-glove with counterpoint defamation claims. None of this information is startling, and purposes that makes the situation a bit difficult to analyze in new light. The claims are not remarkable. We see investigations lead to defamation suits often. As just one, well-publicized, example, it is easy to point out the 2021 settlement of defamation proceedings that had arisen in the wake of former USC football coach Todd McNair suing the NCAA after the organization accused him of violating ethical-conduct rules related to a player and his family allegedly receiving improper benefits (Schlabach & Bonagura, 2021). Going a step further, one can even point to defamation claims that have arisen following sport-related investigations when legislators have sought to curb such investigation-related defamation claims. Congress has attempted to shield the U.S. Center for SafeSport, with its investigations into alleged abuse, from defamation liability in 36 U.S.C. § 220541(d)(1) (Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017, 2018). Plaintiffs are still, however, at times, raising such claims in SafeSport-related litigation against specific parties (Booth v. USA Archery, 2024, compl., 88; Booth v. USA Archery, 2025). Ultimately, this situation with IU Indy presents another example of abuse allegations in sport, with concomitant litigation expanding outward on multiple fronts.
References
Booth v. USA Archery, No. 4:24-CV-04827 (S.D. Tex. Dec. 9, 2024).
Booth v. USA Archery, No. 1:25-CV-02149 (D. Colo. July 11, 2025).
Korin, O. (Attorney). (2025). Tort claim notice [Letter]. https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/c1/4d/c5dfca044b59949891e0d6647838/2025-10-29-corsaro-tort-claim-notice-to-iu-trustees-redacted.pdf
McClain v. Indiana University Board of Trustees, No. 49D03-2512-CT-059065 (Ind. Super. Ct. Dec. 15, 2025). https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/33/80/91afabe144a883d37558d0d68fc4/iu-indy-mens-basketball.pdf
Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017, 36 U.S.C. § 220541 et seq. (2018).
Schlabach, M., & Bonagura, K. (2021, July 26). Former USC football assistant Todd McNair, NCAA settle defamation lawsuit. ESPN. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/31889336/former-usc-trojans-assistant-todd-mcnair-ncaa-settle-defamation-lawsuit
Clare Maness earned her JD magna cum laude from the Ave Maria School of Law in 2006, having served as a law-review senior editor. She is a former research and writing attorney for the Office of the Federal Public Defender for the Western District of Michigan and a current member of the sport-management faculty at the University of Alabama, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses focused on sports law, hospitality law, ethics, and risk management. She is in the Sport Management PhD program at Troy University, and in her spare time, she competes in archery.
