MORGANTOWN — Former West Virginia University President David Hardesty took to the airwaves Monday to debunk charges from one-time basketball coach Dan Dakich that he threatened to “destroy” him or that the school was in any way involved in payments against NCAA rules to former player Jonathan Hargett.

“I will flatly deny that I knew of any activity related to payments to Hargett or that I tried to cover them up or that I threatened him (Dakich) in an effort to keep him quiet. I had no reason to do that. My goal was to keep him (as coach at WVU) and run an honest program,” Hardesty said in his final statement on Hoppy Kercheval’s “Talkline.”

“I think the record speaks for itself when he was here.”

That, however, is a stronger denial than he gave earlier in the “Talkline” show.

“I don’t believe I threatened him. I don’t believe I used that term. If the term destroy came up, it was in a completely different context,” Hardesty said, avoiding flatly denying he used the word.

Asked by Kercheval what context it might have been used in, he replied:

“I don’t know. I’m not going to say I used the term. We probably talked about the implications for his career of walking away and the implications for his career of staying at a Division I school. I was still trying to recruit him.”

On Saturday The New York Times ran a story written by basketball writer Pete Thamel out of a jailhouse interview with Hargett in which he claimed he had been promised $60,000 by WVU but had received only $13,000 to $17,000 of it.

The money, according to an investigation, came not from the school but a shadowy agent via Western Union.

Dakich replaced Gale Catlett, who resigned during the one year Hargett played at WVU, a dismal 2001 season in which the team lost 18 of its final 19 games and finished 1-15 in the Big East, but stayed only eight days, never signing his contract.

He claimed he met with Hardesty after looking into the Hargett situation and was threatened by the president, a story his wife, who was in attendance in the meeting, backed up.

“If you go any further with this, we’ll destroy you,” Dakich quoted Hardesty as saying in the article.

Here is Hardesty’s recollection of what took place:

“I have to think that what happened here was that the conversation we had was like two ships passing in the night. I thought the purpose of the conversation was to assure him we would work with him to uncover whatever there was and we would support him. I wanted him to stay at the university. He was having second thoughts.

“I guess he thought the purpose of the conversation was to see if I would react the way he wanted me to react. I’m not sure what he thought the purpose of the conversation was.”

Hardesty said he didn’t understand why the issue had been brought up again 10 years after the fact and five years after he left the school’s presidency, especially since it was widely reported in the media.

“When he left, the next morning we announced that he had revealed some things to us that gave us some concern. We established a committee to look into it. We used outside counsel. We used internal auditors at the university. We put a faculty representative on the group,” Hardesty said.

“We found there was some fire behind the smoke. We invited the NCAA in. They looked it over; the university received sanctions but there was no proof at all that anyone here knew or condoned the payments the student was receiving.”

Hardesty admits the money payments to Hargett were brought to the school’s attention by Dakich, and the school acted at that time.

“If there was any kind of untoward activity we did our best to ferret it out, and we did. He brought it to our attention. I give him credit for that, and we acted on it. There was no reason for me to threaten him. It’s just so strange that I would try to threaten someone in the context of trying to keep him there.”

Catlett denied knowledge or involvement.

“If he got money from someone, it wasn’t from West Virginia University,” Catlett told the Times. “I can tell you this: As far as I know, that’s totally incorrect. I don’t know who he got the money from or what went on.”

Email Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter @bhertzel.