EKU says ex-coach owes it money

There's a potentially interesting liquidated damages dispute brewing at Eastern Kentucky University, where the university says that men's basketball coach Travis Ford owes it some $225,000 for resigning before the end of his contract.  Ford's contract runs through 2007, but he resigned recently to take the vacant job at the University of Massachusetts.

There's no buyout provision in his contract, but there is a clause that says that if he leaves early, he'll pay to EKU, as liquidated damages, an amount equal to the salary EKU would have paid him for the remainder of the agreement.   There's no word from the school as to why they chose to set it up that way rather than to provide for a buyout.