KENT — Rick Neuheisel left courtroom 3A of the King County Regional Justice Center yesterday looking like the coach who had just walked off the field at Autzen with another win over Oregon.

Gone was the drawn face and teary eyes, replaced by the once-familiar rosy-cheeked face of victory. Looking into a stack of cameras, Neuheisel quietly proclaimed he had been "vindicated."

Vindicated?

Lucky maybe, but not vindicated.

Early yesterday morning, Judge Michael Spearman announced a settlement in the five-week lawsuit filed by the former Washington football coach against the university and the NCAA.

The sides agreed on a $4.5 million settlement that includes Neuheisel's attorney's fees and costs. The UW will pay $500,000 of that and forgive a $1.5 million loan; the NCAA pays the rest.

Neuheisel was lucky. As lucky as he was in 2001 when the Huskies Houdini-ed all those fourth-quarter miracles.

He was lucky that former Washington athletic director Barbara Hedges did such a lousy job of administrating her department.

And he was especially lucky that the NCAA botched this case so badly it gave his legal team the threat of a mistrial that helped nudge the cased toward settlement.

Hedges still will be remembered as a bad athletic director. The NCAA will be remembered as the organization that couldn't get it right. And Neuheisel still will be remembered as the coach who brought down one of the most respected football programs in the country.

This trial was a rehash of all the university's past athletic mistakes. It was five weeks of lies re-aired in court.

"He stood up to two of the largest institutions in the country alone," Neuheisel attorney Bob Sulkin said. "Not many people would do it. He did it, and today is his day of vindication. We're very, very pleased. He should be proud of himself."

Proud?

Proud that he skipped town with $500,000 of the university's money? Proud that former president Lee Huntsman, a man who knows something about integrity, said on the witness stand that Neuheisel was missing "the integrity reflex"?

I don't think winning $4.5 million in a court settlement buys back your pride.

The truth is: Neuheisel, who was the highest paid state employee when he coached at Washington, didn't always show respect for the university. He treated this job as a stepping-stone, not a destination.

He had a wandering eye, whether it was for the San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland Browns or Notre Dame. He let it be known he always was available.

An adult entrusted with the job of leading young men, Neuheisel gambled in high-stakes NCAA basketball pools, even though he had to know it was wrong. He lied to his boss, lied twice to the NCAA and lied to the media and always seemed to have an excuse for doing so.

"I'm not perfect," he said in the day's most understated moment.

Standing in a hallway outside the courtroom, Sulkin next to him, with a reassuring left hand in the middle of Neuheisel's back, the former college football coach said, "I feel fully vindicated. Obviously they're going to have their stories, too. I feel like this is the best scenario. Nobody's nose got bloodied. I want to have a relationship with the University of Washington. I'm a donor."

Since Neuheisel is a donor to the school, he should make his next donation a $500,000 check to help square the damage he did to the football program.

Neuheisel wrecked Washington football. He left his successor, Keith Gilbertson, with an impossible job. Should that make him proud?

Two consecutive bowl-free seasons and last year's 1-10 record are his legacy to the University of Washington — his legacy to the school and to the players he says he loved.

"I have great respect and admiration, not only for the University of Washington, but the NCAA," Neuheisel said, sounding particularly smarmy.

If Neuheisel, who in a Kafkaesque courtroom moment signed autographs for some of the jurors after the settlement was announced, cared about the university as much as he said, he wouldn't have lied to it. If he cared, he wouldn't have looked so ravenously at other coaching options.

"Everybody wins a bit; everybody lost a bit," said a member of one of the legal teams who asked that his name not be used. "Everybody was impacted by the way it came out. ... I feel very sincerely for our community. It was a very traumatic series of events. ... It's time for a fresh start."

Neuheisel lucked out yesterday because the NCAA's defense was strait-jacketed after it failed to disclose a change in NCAA bylaws that meant Neuheisel should have been told that the investigators were looking at his gambling back in 2003 instead of being surprised by it.

"I don't know how you get all these smart people involved in this for 18 months and never put it together," said the NCAA's lead attorney, John Aslin. "I've been doing this for 30 years, and I've never seen this. It was a stunner."

Neuheisel can say this day was a great victory. He can call it his day of vindication.

But nobody won in courtroom 3A. It was just another sad day for Washington football.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com