Brendan Sorsby’s lawyers made their case last week that the Texas Tech quarterback would suffer irreparable injury if the NCAA were permitted to keep Sorsby from playing in the 2026 college football season despite Sorsby’s admitted gambling violations.
By then, the district court judge presiding over the hearing in the Lubbock County Courthouse had already been sized up by those with a rooting interest. Of note, specifically, was where Judge Ken Curry had, and had not, gone to college. He holds, it turned out, no degrees from Texas Tech, the Big 12 school with an enrollment of more than 40,000 that calls Lubbock County home. Instead, he graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington and the University of Houston Law Center.
Why would the education of a judge be a consequential piece of information in the latest flashpoint lawsuit filed against the NCAA over player eligibility? Because Curry, a visiting judge from Fort Worth who retired from the full-time bench in 2012, had been assigned only because the judge initially assigned to the case recused himself. Judge Phillip Hays of Lubbock’s 99th District Court not only attended Texas Tech as both an undergraduate and law student, but also grew up in Lubbock. He has 50-yard-line seats for Texas Tech football games, has basketball tickets and attends several baseball games a year, he told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Oh, and his wife also has two degrees from Texas Tech and his daughter went to school there as well.
“It shouldn’t be put out to public discussion as to whether the judge was biased in one way or another,” Hays told the paper. “So I felt that that (recusal) was in the best interest of the court, the NCAA and Sorsby all getting the fair hearing that they needed.”
A wave of lawsuits against the NCAA by individual college athletes has increased focus on the local judges who sometimes end up influencing the future of college sports. The NCAA especially is tired of being beholden to the decisions of state court judges or even state legislators. But so-called “forum shopping” — looking to file suit in what is believed to be the most favorable jurisdiction — is hardly a new phenomenon. And in most states, it’s up to the judges to decide whether they can be impartial or need to recuse themselves. And just because a judge went to a particular school does not mean they would necessarily side with that school.
“For as long as we’ve had lawsuits involving sports, there have been questions about the impartiality of the judges making decisions,” said Gabe Feldman, director of the Tulane sports law program. “There’s a saying that underneath the judge’s robe, there’s often a jersey. And just like many of us, judges are often fans of a specific team or sport.”
On Monday, Curry, the retired Houston law graduate, granted Sorsby’s request for a temporary injunction, clearing a path for him to play this season after a two-game suspension. The ruling rocked college football because Sorsby had admitted to placing bets on his own team — while playing for the Indiana Hoosiers — which resulted in the NCAA declaring him permanently ineligible. The ruling is not final and impacts only Lubbock County — but there are obvious concerns about a ripple effect.
The NCAA has appealed to Texas’ Seventh Court of Appeals, based in Amarillo. All four justices that preside over the court are graduates of Texas Tech University School of Law.
Before Hays recused himself, a photo of the judge posing with the school’s mascot, Raider Red, with both throwing up the school’s “Guns Up” hand gesture, had begun to circulate.
The mere appearance of potential impropriety is what all judges are supposed to be avoiding, said David Weber, director of the sports law institute at the University of Oregon.
“Whether or not there was actual conflict or not, if there’s the appearance there could be some bias, that’s when the judge should be recusing themselves,” Weber said.
Here is the four-page temporary injunction order from Lubbock County district court judge Ken Curry that essentially overturns the NCAA’s decision and grants Brendan Sorsby eligiblity for the 2026 college football season. pic.twitter.com/0ayY14g2UE
— Justin Williams (@Williams_Justin) June 8, 2026
The recusal worked out well for Sorsby in his case, but it is just the latest to feature a player-led suit against the NCAA that involved a judge who attended the same school the plaintiff competes for.
Judge Robert Q. Whitwell, who sits on the bench in Mississippi’s 18th Chancery District, is a graduate of Ole Miss law school. In February, Whitwell oversaw the lawsuit filed by Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss. The quarterback led the Rebels to the College Football Playoff semifinals in 2025. In seeking a sixth year of eligibility, Chambliss’ legal team argued that the NCAA ignored medical documentation proving that he was physically unfit to play his second season as a quarterback at Division II Ferris State University.
Whitwell eventually granted Chambliss an injunction. After the judge’s 90-minute speech concluded with the Ole Miss Heisman Trophy contender allowed to suit back up for the Rebels, the crowd in the gallery broke out in applause.
The NCAA later petitioned the Mississippi Supreme Court, but in March, the state’s Supreme Court denied the appeal without a detailed explanation.
Matthew Mitten, a law professor at Marquette and the executive director of the National Sports Law Institute, said the concept of forum shopping is on full display in eligibility lawsuits against the NCAA. Chambliss grew up in Michigan and spent part of his college career there, but it still made obvious sense to file in Oxford, Miss., Mitten said.
Sorsby landed at Texas Tech in January as the prize of the college football offseason after starring at Cincinnati. He’s never taken an official snap for the Red Raiders. And yet, before Hays’ own recusal, filing in Lubbock County was a deliberate choice to help boost the chance of getting a favorable ruling, according to people familiar with the situation.
The extent of searching for a potentially sympathetic local judge isn’t specific to college athletes either. Cincinnati filed a federal lawsuit against Sorsby for breach of contract in February, seeking a $1 million buyout in liquidated damages for violating a multi-season revenue-sharing contract. A source familiar with the situation suggested that one potential benefit of the university filing in the Southern District of Ohio Court was the increased likelihood of a more conservative, more school-friendly judge being appointed to the case rather than a local judge in a blue city.
The case was assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Michael R. Barrett, a two-time graduate of Cincinnati and a former member of the board of trustees.
Mitten said most state court judges are elected by their constituents or appointed by state governors. And more often than not, they’re going to be graduates of the local flagship institution’s law school.
“The most favorable forum to an athlete would be a state court that is in the locality where the university they play for is located,” Mitten said. “I’m not saying they’re biased or partial, but you can fairly question one’s independence if they’re an avid sports fan and alumnus of the school where the athlete is playing.”
The home-court advantage, however, isn’t the ultimate equalizer.
Two other recent high-profile eligibility lawsuits against the NCAA were heard in state court by judges who are also alumni of the universities involved. When former Alabama basketball player Charles Bediako, who signed a two-way professional contract with the San Antonio Spurs in 2023, filed an injunction against the NCAA to return to play for the Crimson Tide, he was granted a temporary restraining order by Tuscaloosa Circuit Court Judge James Roberts. Bediako went on to play five games with the Crimson Tide, but the intrigue piqued when Roberts later recused himself from the case. Roberts was listed as a donor on the Crimson Tide Foundation website.
Another Alabama graduate, Judge Daniel Pruet, was assigned the case and, in January, ultimately ruled in favor of the NCAA, ending Bediako’s desired trip back to college basketball.
A month later, Tennessee quarterback Joey Aguilar had his own eligibility case denied in Knox County Chancery Court by Chancellor Chris Heagerty, who himself is a two-time graduate of Tennessee. In local news coverage of the event, Heagerty seemed prepared to face scrutiny from the community. Which, as Weber noted, is another fascinating byproduct of these lawsuits.
Most state court judges will go up for reelection sometime in the near future. How does either siding with or against a team’s star player play when it’s time to show up at the ballot box?
“There’s nothing lost on me being an elected official and having a voting group here in Lubbock County that elects me every four years,” Hays told the Avalanche-Journal.
“It’s going to get a lot more ink in the newspaper, just because now you’re not just talking about local politics — you’re talking about Big Team U,” Weber said. “That might feature more pressure when a judge goes to a dinner club or country club and runs into old pals. They’re more likely to talk about those cases than whatever other white-collar crime cases they’re hearing.”
Hays seemed to have a bigger understanding of the narrative around Texas Tech athletics, telling the Avalanche-Journal: “Tech has been, for the last 18 months, subject to ridicule and discussion — even during the ladies’ softball tournament, about Tech’s money buys teams and this and that, and so are we buying a Sorsby just to be a championship football team? We need to get beyond that and not have a court play into that discussion as well.”
Hays opening the door for a visiting judge from four hours away to issue a milestone ruling in Sorsby’s case provides its own twist to how things can ultimately unfold on the home field.
— The Athletic’s Justin Williams contributed to this story.
