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TORONTO — After resigning his York University coaching job because of a devastating crack cocaine problem, former Olympian Paul James has failed in his bid to prove that the school “discriminated against him on the basis of his crack addiction.”

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Described as “one of Canada’s best-known soccer personalities,” James played for Team Canada both at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1986 World Cup.

Starting in 2003, he spent six years as the “master coach” of York’s varsity soccer program.

Secretly, though, while at York James was struggling with a ruinous crack addiction that he first picked up in the late 1990s.

In 2009, after two stints in rehab — and after York had removed him as the head of the men’s and women’s soccer teams — James resigned from the university.

“After 20 years of coaching, I’ve just come to the decision that I want to just move away from that career. In a way, I’ve lost a little bit of the passion for it,” James told The Canadian Press in 2010.

Within months of his departure, a period of “extreme crack use” would soon clear out his savings, send James into stints of homelessness and earn him two brushes with the law, including an alleged 2010 assault on a peace officer.

In 2012, James went public with his addiction, publishing a memoir entitled Cracked Open.