Former football coach Ryan Brady is suing Saginaw Valley State University in University Center, Mich., claiming he was fired when he refused to violate the school's nepotism policy and fill an assistant coach position with the son of athletic director John Lewandowski.
As reported Sunday by mlive.com, the lawsuit was filed in late May in the state Court of Claims and lists both Saginaw Valley State’s Board of Control and Lewandowski as defendants.
Brady said in a complaint filed at the end of May that Lewandowski used him “as a pawn in an attempt to circumvent the Nepotism Policy and actively pressured [Brady] to get his son hired notwithstanding that policy.”
According to Matthew Miller of mlive.com, in a motion to dismiss the case, the university argued that it is protected by governmental immunity and that, because Brady only claimed he was asked to violate a university rule and not a law, he has no legal claim. The university argued that asking Brady to violate one of its internal policies is not the same as asking him to violate a public policy, which would have given Brady an avenue to argue that he had been wrongfully dismissed.
It also argued that neither John Lewandowski nor Brady count as “public officers” under the law, meaning that laws cited in Brady’s complaint don’t apply to them, Miller reported.
Brady was hired as SVSU’s head coach in 2019. After a lackluster first season and a second season derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, he coached the Cardinals to a 7-4 season in 2021, the first of five consecutive winning seasons. In 2025, he led SVSU to its best finish in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in a dozen years.
"Lewandowski had spent 20 years at Michigan State University before resigning in 2016 after what a university memo described as 'serious allegations' were raised about his conduct, according to previous media reports, but the university never specified what the allegations entailed. He spent six years as the senior associate athletic director for communications and marketing at University of Louisiana-Monroe before being hired at SVSU in the fall of 2023," Miller of mlive.com reported. "Lewandowski’s son Davis had worked on the football coaching staff at Monroe during his father’s time there. But, in the fall of 2023, the university fired football coach Terry Bowden and Davis Lewandowski’s job went with him.
"Shortly afterward, John Lewandowski asked Brady to give his son a phone call for support, according to the complaint. He also raised the possibility of bringing Davis Lewandowski to Saginaw Valley as part of the coaching staff."
Lewandowski did not respond to requests for comment on the case. J.J. Boehm, a spokesman for the university, said only, “We are aware of the filing. We have no further comment at this time due to pending litigation."
The university’s nepotism policy prohibits anyone from taking a job “within the scope of supervision or authority of a member of the same family.” Given that John Lewandowski was the athletic director, any position on the coaching staff would have placed his son within his scope of authority.
According to the complaint, per Miller's reporting:
- When Brady attended the national convention of the National Football Coaches Association a few weeks later to interview assistant coaches, Lewandowski told Brady to connect with his son and to consider him for an assistant coaching job.
- The university’s human resources department did tell Brady that the nepotism policy wouldn’t prevent Davis Lewandowski from volunteering with the team, and Brady offered him a volunteer position.
- John Lewandowski soon became “extremely involved in attempting to have his son obtain [a] paid, full-time position as an assistant coach” at Saginaw Valley.
- After Brady informed him that the university’s human resources department would not permit such a hire, Lewandowski became “angry and irate,” and insisted that Brady set up a meeting with SVSU president George Grant Jr. to resolve the issue.
When Grant told Brady there was nothing the university could do, the complaint said, Lewandowski “began to put the ‘muscle’ to” Brady, ordering him to talk to the university’s Board.
Brady brought the request to Ron Bacon, a former SVSU football player and, at the time, a new member of the Board of Control, but Bacon declined to intervene. Lewandowski then told Brady to see if one of Bacon’s friends could convince him to change his mind.
Lewandowski kept up the pressure through the summer and fall of 2024, reiterating requests to talk to Board members and university officials and urging Brady to reapproach the president.
- After Davis Lewandowski accepted a coaching job with the University of Virginia in early 2025, John Lewandowski “demanded” that Brady ask SVSU to pay Davis Lewandowski for his year of volunteer work.
- When Brady came back to him, saying that the university’s human resources department told him the maximum stipend they could give a volunteer was $500, John Lewandowski “threw Plaintiff’s phone in a fit of anger and stated ‘Not to [obscenity] bother’ about the stipend as it was a ‘slap in the face.’”
- When SVSU announced his firing 10 months later, John Lewandowski said “The bottom line is that winning seasons are no longer the standards of excellence of our program. In the last three years, we were 6-5, 7-4, 6-5. We had hit that ceiling. This season, we went all in. We gave out guarantees to get a seven-game home schedule. We put everything in place to get a playoff berth, and it didn’t happen.”
Brady, who is seeking financial restitution, claims his dismissal had everything to do with his refusal to hire Lewandowski’s son. "Any other reasons given for his termination are 'either not based in fact, did not actually motivate the decision, and/or were too insignificant to warrant the action taken,' ” Miller reported, citing language in the compaint.
