In the immortal words of Elvis: "The truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a while, but it ain't goin' away."

Indeed.

And so there is the truth hidden somewhere in this hullabaloo over Kevin Ollie, the erstwhile men's basketball coach at UConn, who has been appealing the decision to fire him with cause, thus allowing the school to forgo paying him the more than $10 million left on his contract.

UConn's truth: As echoed in the words of athletic director David Benedict and most recently, president Susan Herbst, Ollie had a pattern of breaking NCAA rules, thus leading to his dismissal.

Ollie's truth: UConn officials will say anything to avoid paying the money and the idea that Ollie is a rule-breaker amounts to "bootstrapping," according to Jacques Parenteau, his attorney.

Shall we discuss?

We begin here: I called an old friend of mine who works as an assistant athletic director at a Division I school in the west. He has a deep background with NCAA compliance. I asked him about Ollie's transgressions, which include shooting baskets with a recruit during an unofficial visit last September; arranging a video call between a potential recruit and Ray Allen, who is now considered a school booster by the NCAA; and Ollie arranging improper training sessions with a friend who is a personal trainer both on campus and during out of state trips that amounted to improper gifts.

"The violation involving the trainer and the expenses to travel to Atlanta is a serious one," my friend said. "I would fire a coach for that. Saint Mary's went on probation for five years for the same thing a few years ago."

Per the NCAA report, St. Mary's coach Randy Bennett "knew of impermissible offseason workouts by Saint Mary's players conducted by outside basketball trainers and conditioning coaches."

I am left to conclude that Ollie should consider himself fortunate to get a dime out of UConn, given that 1) the NCAA has placed a program on probation for a similar violation in the past; and 2) a school official familiar with compliance believes the violation to be serious.

It is perfectly logical to wonder about UConn's motives with $10 million in the balance. But then, based on the evidence, how can anyone sans an agenda deny Ollie's hands are dirty enough here to warrant his dismissal?

And we've yet to mention former assistant coach Glen Miller's testimony about an alleged $30,000 payment by Ollie to the mother of a player.

Ollie's defenders sit in three camps: 1) Toadies in the national media who talk out of their tailpipes, but manage to act as though they know one more fact than the rest of us about this case; 2) Casual fans who like conspiracy theories because they're easier to process than arcane NCAA rules; and 3) his lawyer, Parenteau, who appears to be quite good at grandstanding.

Parenteau has tried to discredit Miller and his testimony. Good luck with that. If Miller truly wanted to grind the proverbial ax, he'd have run to a national media outlet the day after he was canned. His testimony came unwillingly from his attorney's office several months later. Then there's this: Miller's reputation is Clorox clean.

Parenteau may or may not have been responsible for Ollie's pathetic thank-you gesture to UConn fans last week, during which Ollie gushed over how much he just loooooves everything here. Note to Mr. Ollie: If you love the fans so much here, perhaps you would have engaged them a bit better in your time. Eventually, dismissiveness with the media translates into telling the fans they need not know what's going on in the program. Jim Calhoun was no barrel of laughs at times here, but there's no more of an engaging soul who ever stalked the sidelines.

Finally, Parenteau told the Associated Press, "The collective bargaining agreement requires 'serious misconduct' with each act to be viewed on its own merit in order to have just cause to terminate employment. President Herbst's letter claiming serious misconduct based on this alleged 'pattern of non-compliance' is just bootstrapping and nothing more than a desperate attempt to articulate a reason that sound legitimate in order to deny Coach Ollie the money he is owed by UConn."

Except that the NCAA sent St. Mary's to probation for a similar offense.

Except an athletic official at another school admitted the improper benefits UConn players received in Atlanta with the off-campus training warrants termination.

Sounds serious enough to me.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro