Syracuse, N.Y. -- In March 2015, just after the NCAA released a report punishing Syracuse University, athletic director Daryl Gross resigned, appearing to take the fall for a national embarrassment.

Behind the scenes, however, Syracuse was rewarding him financially.

Far from punishing him, the school gave Gross a new three-year contract worth more than $1.5 million -- all for a vague, newly-created job that involved little public responsibility.

When Gross wanted to leave that new job just one year into the arrangement, Syracuse paid him $675,000 to help him accept a job across the country.

The details surrounding Gross' departure and his financial arrangement with the school were revealed in legal documents obtained by Syracuse.com and shed a new light on his departure from the school.

"If I wanted to (be at Syracuse), I could be," Gross said in sworn testimony. "I had the opportunity to stay there as long as I want. As (Chancellor Kent Syverud) said, 'Daryl, as long as I'm here, you can be here with me, as long as you want to.' "

Those financial arrangements weren't included in the letter from Syracuse Chancellor Kent Syverud to the Syracuse community in which Syverud addressed the university's response to the NCAA investigation.

They were only revealed in a deposition involving a gender discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit at Gross' current school, California State University-Los Angeles. Gross is not a defendant in the lawsuit but was deposed by a lawyer for the plaintiff, Shelia Hudson. Syracuse.com obtained a copy of that deposition.

Syracuse University officials declined to be interviewed for this story. Gross did not return a request for comment.

Syverud's announcement that Gross would no longer serve as Syracuse's athletic director offered only praise for Gross, saying that the decision was not based on the past but was the best way to move forward.

"What was hard was taking the time to make it right and to do it with grace to everybody involved," Syverud told Syracuse.com at the time. "What was tough about it was not the substance of the decision ultimately, but ensuring that, in all the noise going on in the world, we made the right decisions for the right reasons that was fair to all parties."

Those decisions came as media members across the country were calling on Syracuse to hold some of its most powerful employees responsible for the NCAA violations, rather than placing all the blame on lower-level employees. Along with Gross' new position, the release included a retirement date for Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim.

The actions seemed, to many, to send a powerful message.

Sports Illustrated wrote that the actions allowed "the university suits to look themselves in the mirror without wincing and say that they stood up to big-time sports."

Syracuse.com praised Syverud for his decisive action and "grace under pressure," and opined that that "presumably Gross will engineer a graceful exit from there."

Unknown, until now, was how Syracuse University took care of Gross.

Since that announcement, Boeheim has chosen not to retire and continues to successfully coach the men's basketball team. Last summer, one year before he was scheduled to retire, the school announced it had reached an agreement with Boeheim on a contract extension. It held a news conference the next day.

Gross' new contract, meanwhile, went unannounced by the school. It went uncelebrated by school officials. A significant portion of Syracuse's response would remain hidden if not for a lawsuit at a Division II school across the country.

Gross' deposition covered 721 pages. About 40 focused on his time at SU.

In that deposition, Gross said he was given a new three-year contract by Syracuse that paid him the same salary he was making as athletic director.

"It (was a) wonderful opportunity, at my same salary, and given a contract to do that, and to still sit on the cabinet of one of the top 55 schools in the country," Gross said.

Little is known about what work Gross accomplished in his new position as a Senior Vice President and Special Assistant to the Chancellor. The initial announcement said the university would benefit from his experience in marketing and advancement.

He was rarely seen and wasn't connected publicly to any university projects. The position has not been filled since. When asked last year what duties Gross performed, Syracuse University referred a reporter back to the initial announcement.

Gross also taught a class each semester in the David Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics.

When Gross wanted to leave that job just a year into his three-year contract, he said, Syracuse offered to provide him a "lump sum" payment so that he could accept a significantly lower salary in California.

"They compensated me, Syracuse, for leaving early," Gross said in the deposition. "I could have stayed, stayed on there, you know, and when I brought up to the chancellor that I had an opportunity to go to Cal State, but I'm not sure if I wanted to do it, he said, 'Well' -- because I had two years left on my contract and the salaries were differing. He, he told me that they could help me."

That lump sum was reflected in a severance payment of $675,000, which brought Gross' 2016 compensation package to more than $1 million. The combination made him the fifth-highest paid employee of Syracuse University that year, despite the fact that he spent just six months on campus.

Gross has consistently said it was his decision to leave the athletic director position and that the change in position wasn't a sign of him being held responsible for violations by either the school or the NCAA.

In his deposition he made a point to mention how others were singled out in the NCAA's report.

"You know, the coach (Boeheim) served a nine-game suspension," Gross said. "He was the one that was charged. He had been charged in 1991 as well. So that's -- and the PR of it wasn't great."

Gross pointed out that violations involving small payments to players and a failure to follow the school's drug policy began under former athletic director Jake Crouthamel, although they also spilled into the early portions of his time at SU.

"I don't know if you know the degree of what had already occurred at Syracuse before I even got there," Gross said. "As an athletic director, you're going to inherit whatever is there, and sometimes that's just part of the deal, but I am very comfortable with decisions I made."

Gross said Syracuse attorneys and a staff member for NCAA President Mark Emmert have written letters to potential employers on his behalf. Gross said those reports contain the "true data" about the NCAA investigation and "not newspaper perception subjectivity."

Most of that "subjectivity" relates to Gross' role in convening an all-hands-on-deck meeting to address former player Fab Melo's academic ineligibility.

That meeting, which the NCAA said was well-intentioned, included both athletic and academic officials, including a representative of the provost's office. In his deposition, Gross pointed out that the provost is considered Syracuse's top academic official.

The plan to get Melo eligible by obtaining a grade change failed when a member of the basketball staff committed academic fraud on his behalf, and the issue led to the discovery of other impermissible academic benefits.

The decision to award Gross the new three-year contract came at a time when Syracuse University was actively discussing the need to make difficult financial choices.

Around the time Gross received his new contract, the school offered buyouts to a number of employees (254 accepted) and the university decreased its involvement in certain community projects like the Near West Side Initiative.

At protests this year, students complained of cuts to the budgets of programs that serve marginalized students. Syracuse also raised its tuition so that the expected cost of attendance next year is more than $70,000.

"Daryl Gross entered into a three-year contract as Vice President and Special Assistant to the Chancellor following his tenure as Director of Athletics," Syracuse said in a statement. "That contract came to an end by mutual agreement when Dr. Gross accepted his current position. His decision to leave the university on his own accord substantially reduced the university's financial obligations."

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