6 former Florida State players file lawsuit against coach Leonard Hamilton over NIL compensation

Six former Florida State basketball players filed a lawsuit Monday against their former coach, Leonard Hamilton, over unpaid promises of NIL compensation that total $1.5 million and acknowledged within the documents that they boycotted a practice last season over the missed payments.

The legal complaint, filed in Florida’s Leon County circuit court, is an unprecedented and fascinating filing in the era of athlete compensation as roughly half of a former team makes shocking claims against one of college basketball’s more accomplished coaches.

The six plaintiffs — Darin Green Jr., Josh Nickelberry, Primo Spears, Cam’Ron Fletcher, De’Ante Green and Jalen Warley — allege that Hamilton promised each of them $250,000 in NIL payments from the coach’s “business partners.”

The players never received the payments despite Hamilton promising the money to each member of the 2023-24 team in two separate team meetings as well as in individual conversations with some players and their families. Several players transferred to Florida State under the assurance that they would receive the money.

As evidence of the NIL promises, the complaint includes multiple text-message exchanges among players, between players and Hamilton, and between players and Will Cowen, an executive with one of Florida State’s NIL collectives.

In one of the more striking revelations, FSU players say they boycotted a practice before a Feb. 17 game against Duke. They “walked out of the gym” during practice to show their frustration over the unpaid NIL promises and they intended to boycott the game as well, the claim says. Hamilton discovered the plan and, in a meeting in the team’s film room, re-emphasized that the money would be in the players’ accounts the very next week. Players competed in the game, losing to the Blue Devils, 76-67.

In several messages to Cowen and in conversations with Hamilton, players communicated that they needed the money to pay taxes, rent and car notes, and that they were “tired of the lies.” In the middle of last season, Green, a team leader, texted Cowen that “this money situation is weighing on a lot of guys and affecting guys on the court” and explained that he was trying to “get the guys to understand” the delay in payment but “it’s hard when they have been told 250 grand.”

FSU finished last season 17-16 and 10-10 in the ACC. The 76-year-old Hamilton has a salary of $2.25 million as part of a five-year contract he struck with the school in 2021. He’s in his 37th season as a head college basketball coach, presiding over the Seminoles program since 2002 and taking them to eight NCAA tournaments and the 2020 ACC regular season championship. This year’s team is 9-4 and 0-2 in the conference and includes six players who participated last season.

None of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit is currently on the team. The eligibility of Green and Nickelberry expired after last season. The four others all transferred, many or all of them because they were never paid, including Spears (UTSA), Fletcher (Xavier), De’Ante Green (South Florida) and Warley (Gonzaga). The complaint could be amended at a later date to add other former players.

The lawsuit is the latest public revelation of the chaotic nature of the NIL era of college athletics, providing a behind-the-scenes peek of an unregulated system in which boosters, and even coaches, are funding or promising to fund college rosters.

Over the past several months, plenty of stories have surfaced.

Just this past football season, Matthew Sluka, a starting quarterback for a top-25 UNLV football team, left the program after, he says, a coach promised him a $100,000 NIL deal that he never received. Last year, former Florida quarterback commitment Jaden Rashada, now playing at Georgia, filed suit against Gators coach Billy Napier for an unpaid $13 million NIL payment promised to him during his recruitment. And at Tulsa, several players claim they were never paid thousands of dollars in NIL commitments made by former coach Kevin Wilson.

Communication, or lack thereof, between coaches and their booster-backed NIL collectives has been a problematic hallmark since the NIL era began in July 2021, when state laws forced the NCAA to permit athletes to earn compensation from endorsement deals. The elimination of the NCAA’s amateurism rules combined with the lack of guidance and enforcement — the NCAA is handcuffed by court rulings — has resulted in a messy system in which school donors pool cash to distribute to a roster.

However, collectives, even those affiliated with the wealthiest programs, are struggling to raise enough money to fulfill commitments made to either retain or recruit athletes, many of them needing direct financial assistance from institutions — a move that, while not necessarily within NCAA guidelines, is permitted through several state laws.

The next six months are expected to be one of the most unruly times in NCAA history as the organization transitions into athlete revenue sharing. As part of the landmark House settlement agreement, schools will be permitted to pay athletes directly, moving the player compensation system from boosters to the institution.

As schools brace for the implementation of the revenue-sharing era in July — each school can pay as much as $20.5 million annually to their athletes — coaches are taking reductions in their salaries to help fund rosters.

That includes Florida State’s football coach, Mike Norvell, who announced earlier this month that he agreed to a reduction of $4.5 million in his 2025 salary. The Seminoles went 2-10 this season in a disappointing follow-up to the 2023 ACC championship team that won 13 games.

Meanwhile, the basketball program is the target of the latest NIL-related issue within the sport.

The complaint says “all hope is lost” now for the $1.5 million to be paid after four of the players moved on and two exhausted their eligibility. Hamilton’s actions were called “despicable,” and it is important for the court to punish him and prevent him from hurting other players with such promises, documents say.

The lawsuit brings four counts against the coach, including breach of contract, promissory estoppel (the recovery of promised damages), fraudulent misrepresentation and inducement, and negligent misrepresentations. Plaintiffs request from the court an award of $250,000 each in compensatory damages, unspecific punitive and exemplary damages and interest at “high statutory rates.”

Darren Heitner, a Florida-based attorney who filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs, said the plaintiffs attempted to recoup the promised NIL pay and avoid litigation, but communication with FSU’s outside counsel could not resolve the matter.

“It is vitally important to hold people accountable to the promises they make,” Heitner told Yahoo Sports. “This is a situation where the entire roster relied on Coach Hamilton’s promise and he failed to deliver. This is about holding him accountable and hopefully this prevents this from happening again at FSU or elsewhere.”

The suit features some interesting details that give outsiders a glimpse into the impact of NIL on a team dynamic in the middle of a season.

For instance, in a group text message chain, disgruntled players bemoaned the broken NIL promises during last season, one in the chat texting, “[They] f***** up by telling us we was getting 200k.”

The origins of the NIL promises date back to an April 2023 meeting described as an “NIL meeting,” where Hamilton told all players they’d be receiving $250,000 by the end of the next season (March 2024).

“Every player on the 2023-24 FSU men’s basketball team roster relied on the promises that Hamilton made when they either decided to transfer to FSU or remain enrolled at FSU and play out the season,” the suit says. “However, as the season continued, many players, including the plaintiffs, became very frustrated by the continuous failure to perform on the myriad of promises issued by Hamilton.”

The boycott of practice before the Duke game had the coach “panicked,” the suit claims. Cowen was present at the meeting in the team’s film room where Hamilton reemphasized that his business partners — an unspecified private company — would send the $250,000 payments by the next week. The meeting persuaded players to take the floor against Duke.

However, the payment never arrived. Over the final month of the regular season and into April, players regularly communicated with Cowen about the payments, some of them attempting a last-ditch effort to acquire the money before they decided to transfer.

Messages from Cowen paint a gloomy picture of the fundraising efforts.

“I’m busting my ass every day for you guys. I’m meeting with the top donor in the entire booster organization Friday after trying to get us a little bit more each day,” he said in one text.

“Crossing my fingers that I can shake loose at least 10 for you tomorrow,” Cowen told Green in another text, presumably a reference to $10,000.

In an exchange with Warley, Cowen acknowledged the situation was a “disaster” and said he understood the player’s desire to transfer.

“I’m telling you the sad truth that zero of the promises made to us came through in the past month,” Cowen said in a text to Spears. “Not a penny has come in” of Hamilton’s promise after the meeting in the film room, he told the player.

In other text messages, Cowen seems to acknowledge the problem with coaches promising NIL payments. He told one player that coaches are no longer permitted to do this, signaling that FSU administrators had stopped such acts.

In one of the most recent exchanges included in the suit, Cowen texted Nickelberry in June that he’d recently left a meeting with Hamilton and that the coach said his “donors” are finally ready to help. However, the very next week, Cowen texted Nickelberry that there was no new update.

Hamilton did not text or put in writing any of the NIL promises. One text between the coach and Nickelberry is featured in the lawsuit. In July, Nickelberry messaged Hamilton about the financial difficulties he was experiencing after completing his final season at FSU without having the promised $250,000.

“Tired of the lies coach. It’s messing with my head,” the text said.

“I’ll call you back in a few,” Hamilton writes back.