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Readings It's Not About the Truth | Don Yaeger   Video Lectures ESPN Films 30 for 30: Fantastic Lies PLEASE COMPLETE TWO PARTS SEPARATELY IN TWO FILE 1

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Readings

It's Not About the Truth | Don Yaeger

 

Video Lectures

ESPN Films 30 for 30: Fantastic Lies

PLEASE COMPLETE TWO PARTS SEPARATELY IN TWO FILE

1. Discussion (apa format)

 

By the mid-week deadline based on your readings and the video lectures answer each of the questions/prompts below with 1-2 paragraphs using concepts from the text or your own research (be sure to cite correctly).

Question

• Give your impression as to why this became a national story. What gave the story it’s oxygen?
• What should the District attorney have done differently?

2. Journal (apa format)

INSTRUCTIONS

The Reflective Journal is an assessment of your understanding of assigned readings, course lectures, and videos. It is also a means in which you demonstrate how you will apply your readings and observations in your day to day to life.

 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN f AGENDAS ALL AROUND A popular theme in the news media after the stripper party at 610 was that the lacrosse team was a pack of wolves who roamed Duke's campus, leaving a wake of doom and destruction. And they were all the rage. In fact, several reporters described the lacrosse play­ ers as "the most popular guys on campus." If that were true-and some doubt that it was-it was hard to imagine that so many people could think the worst about them so quickly. But they did. The immediate backlash facing the team was threefold. It came equally from their peers, the Duke faculty, and the surrounding Durham commu­ nity. Without question, nearly everyone believed these forty-seven lacrosse players were capable of the most heinous of crimes. "It's pretty tough to be one of fifty people who believe in one truth," Coach Mike Pressler would say, "when fifty million people believe some­ thing else." Staying off Duke's campus and avoiding the protests in front of 6 IO did not give the players an escape from those who instantly assumed their guilt. New websites popped up daily, some focusing on the players indi­ vidually. Devon Sherwood was especially targeted, being the only African­ American on the team. "There were comments about how I'm letting down my forefathers, basically reversing what we were striving for, blaming everything on me," Sherwood recalled months later. "A bunch of them wrote that 'this is your aunt, this is your mother that was raped.' They wrote that if I did know this happened, I should rot and burn in hell." ... 132 h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH Every faction within the community had an opinion about the events that had allegedly transpired and they wanted the lacrosse players-and the rest of the world-to hear it. This was the time to voice their opinions, and to voice them loudly. The demonstrations were numerous. It began with an all-night candlelight vigil on Saturday, March 25. "More than 250 protestors attended two demonstrations Saturday night and Sunday morning in front of the residence where three members of the men's lacrosse team allegedly raped a local woman," reported the Chronicle. 'The demonstration was intended to be both a 'wake-up call' to raise awareness about sexual assault and a sign of support for the alleged victims." As the Aames from the protesters' candles burned out, and the rising sun brought a new day, the vigil would continue with the infamous "potbangers. ,, They came wielding pots and pans and anything else made of tin or metal that would make plenty of noise. Some were armed with mega­ phones, chanting phrases like, "You can't run, you can't hide." Ochers held signs with slogans reading: "Get a Conscience, Not a Lawyer." The largest banner read: "Give Them Equal Measure. CASTRATE!" A circle of protesters posted in front of 6 I 0, beating on drums like a school marching band. They filled the air with an uptempo beat while re­ peating one single phrase: "We say no more." These "pot-bangers" ranged from black co white, young to old, afflu­ ent to poor, Duke student to Durham resident, even including some fac­ ulty members. "Those are the Trinity Park folks," Pressler described them. "The liberal side of Durham lives over there." They did not discriminate against anyone who had something to say. Lacrosse player William Wolcott did not live at 610, but he still lived close enough to feel the wrath of the pot-bangers. W hen there was no re­ sponse at 610, they made their way to his front door instead; they knew a lacrosse teammate lived nearby. 1 Agendas All Around 133 "K. J. Sauer [ another Duke player] and I lived around the corner from 610," Wolcott said. "We were sitting in our house and K.J. comes running into my room. He's scared and he's frightened. There's a mob outside our house, banging pots and pans. We went to the front and there were people banging on our windows, people screaming, Time to confess.' I like to think that I've faced some pretty scary things; going one on one with Reade Seligmann in practice-he's a hell of a player-is a daunting task, but that was the most scared I've been in my whole life. We had to sneak out the back door." The pot-bangers' outrage was impossible to ignore. 'The community consequences for this action, I guarantee, will range far beyond the legal consequences you will face." These words thundered through a mega­ phone, screamed by one of the passionate pot-bangers. Preachers from the community positioned themselves in front of 610 in crisp white suits, preaching to all who would listen. They were deter­ mined to find justice for their poor "sister" who they believed had been beaten, raped, and sodomized by this team of brutish white men. Next came the "wanted" poster and its more appalling offspring-the "vigilante" poster. The original "wanted" poster came from the Durham Police Depart­ ment CrimeStoppers program. Although DPD claims CrimeStoppers is independently managed, there is a DPD liaison, Corporal David Addison, who is in charge of producing these wanted posters. His original version displayed text only. Ir read: On Monday, March 13, 2006 about I I :OOpm, the Duke University La­ crosse Team solicited a local escort service for entertainment. The victim was paid to danct at the residence located at 6 IO Buchanan. The Duke Lacrosse Team was hosting a parer at the residence. The victim was sod­ omized, raped, assaulted and robbed. This horrific crime sent shock waves throughout our community. 13 4 h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH Durham Police needs your assistance in solving this case. We are asking anyone who has any information related to this case, please con­ tact Inv. Himan. Information can also be provided anonymously through Durham CrimeStoppers. (Please use an anonymous email account.) Durham CrimeStoppers will pay casb for any information which leads to an arrest in this case. On March 29, another poster was distributed. This one had pictures. With the headline PLEASE COME FORWARD, this "vigilante" poster displayed headshots of forty-three of the forty-six white lacrosse players, with their names printed below the photos. All forty-six were not displayed only be­ cause the pictures were pulled from Duke's website before every white player's photo could be retrieved, a fact explained on the bottom of the poster. This protestor-produced vigilante poster quoted Addison's previous comment to ABC News: "We're not saying that all 46 were involved. But we do know that some of the players inside that house on that evening knew what transpired and we need them to come forward." As if one wanted poster was not condemning enough for the players, two of them made an obvious statement. The New Black Panthers also planned a trip to Duke; it seemed they didn't want to miss out on the action. They marched through campus on May I, "Dressed in fatigues, combat boots and flak jackets-some sporting knives on their belts," as described in the Raltigh News & Observer. They were outfitted to fight another battle in their war against racial injustice, even coming with a set of eight "demands" for "justice." Duke would do very little to stand in their way. Sue Pressler remembers her exact reaction when she heard of this planned demonstration: "The New Black Panthers come to town and you have Duke saying, 'We're going to let them walk through campus quietly,' even when their intentions were clear. The News & Observer that day re- •• \trn· 'f" Age ndas All Arou1 ported that the Pant gation, and we inter. We seek to ensure • scary is that? How C· you how out of co n Then there were tht were often thought players weren't the mark, as well. Caught in the n His head was spinn The one thing he s1 together. On March 27, from Duke sent Pr control. The first n student was one of guilty. It read: RE: SOME TH A FEW GAME? ISTSARE FOU Although this which Pressler rec, would absolutely but those six word RE: WHAT IF As any father that far exceeded · rted that the Panthers said, 'We are conducting an independent investi­ gation, and we intend to enter the campus and interview lacrosse players. We seek to ensure an adequate, strong, and vigorous prosecution.' How scary is that? How could these kids be safe, in class and on campus? It tells you how out of control the thinking was, how crazy the moment was." J r Then there were the emails and anonymous threats. The emails to players . were often thoughtless and cruel and, in some cases, threatening. The players weren't the only ones targeted. Mike Pressler would become a mark, as well. Caught in the middle of this whirlwind, Pressler tried to stand strong. His head was spinning as everything he had built unraveled before his eyes. The one thing he still had was his family. That was the glue that held him together. On March 27, 2006, at I :59 P.M., a young African-American student from Duke sent Pressler two emails that nearly sent him spiraling out of control. The first message that appeared made it clear to Pressler that this student was one of the fifty million who assumed his lacrosse players were ; guilty. It read: RE: SOME THINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WINNING A FEW GAMES. END THE SEASON UNTIL THE ALLEGED RAP­ ISTS ARE FOUND! YOU'LL BE A MUCH BETTER COACH FOR IT. Although this message made a bold statement, it was the next email, which Pressler received just two minutes later from this same student, that would absolutely infuriate him. Only six words were in the subject line, but those six words shot rage through every bone in Pressler's body: RE: WHAT IF JANET LYNN WERE NEXT??? As any father of a teenage daughter could imagine, this crossed a line that far exceeded what Pressler was prepared to handle. h's NoT ABOUT THE TRUT H The sender's name was Chauncey Narcey. He was o nly a junior at Duke and had developed a reputation for being a vocal African-Americ an activist on campus. "I turned the email over to my atto rney and he said you could hav e him arrested," Pressler said. "We ch ose not to do that. We chose to rep ort it to the dean of students, Lar ry Mo nera, and have him deal with it." Pressler's outrage only intensified when he learned how the Duke ad­ ministratio n dealt with Nartey. "T his is what they did," said Pre ssler. 'They said, 'Chauncey, don't do it again. Okay? And you should write the coach an apology.' " That was it. Nothing more than a mere slap on the wrist. Unbeknow n st to Pressler at the tim e, the exposure of another email from one of his own players would be treated very differen tly by chat same Duke administration. This player would be immediately suspended for the distasteful content of his ema il, and it wo uld ultimately end Pre ssler's coaching career at Duke. That pla yer was Ryan Mcfadyen. "L ook at the standard, a black junior threatens my daughter and he gets a slap on the wrist. A white lacrosse player, Rya n Mcfadyen, threatens nobody by name and write s an email that is a parody of American Psycho, and he gets sus ­ pended indefin itely." The double standard became blaz ingly apparent. W hen Pressler handed the Narcey e mails to Duke, the university made sure to fill out a police report detailing the coach's concern. Stil l, no action was taken against Nartey. In fact, when President Brodhead ap­ pointe d a committee, the Campus Cultural Initiative, to study the "cu l­ ture" at Duke in the wake of the lacr osse case, among those selected to the committee was ... Nar tey. To his credit, Nartey realized the error of his ways ... two month s later. He con tacted Pressler again, this time mailing a letter direcdy to Pressler's home address. This was a letter of apology. Although Na rtey's repen tant attempt spilled over ont o two pages, no sentence in this letter · Agendas Al1 Around matched che effect of those six words he r rape allegations became public. Narcey's letter to Pressler seemed s· lengthy paragraphs can summarize his th wholeheartedly apologize for referencini bly threatening email" to "a family that He cried to explain his intentions. "I sin the conn ection between how the familie! especially when it appears as though the insensitive as to c ontinue forward with al dal were not occurring underneath their And, as any true apology letter shou suck up to the former coach, commen "From the moment you assumed your f ignation, you personified leadership am to a position among the elite." When asked in an interview for this was less than enthusiastic, even threatt mischaracterized. Before refusing furtht believed his emails should not have been I sent-I sent two-I sent them from said, explai nin g his twisted logic. "I ser wasn't like any anonymous thing.I kne ' so it wasn t any sort of th reat." Nartey also admitted that it was "a ter into the mix "just because I didn't d strued." He went on say, "It was a stupi retrospect, but at the time I thought if propriate to move forward with athle perhaps that paralle l could be drawn h) dear to him. And again, foolish, but ti the paralle l." NoT AsouT THE TRUTI-I He was only a junior at a vocal African-American 1d he said you could have o that. We chose to report ave him deal with it." learned how the Duke ad­ t they did," said Pressler. And you should write the ) on the wrist. ;ure of another email from y differently by that same mmediately suspended for ,Id ultimately end Pressler's n Mcfadyen. "Look at the r and he gets a slap on the , threatens nobody by name sus1ca11 Psycho, and he gets )arent. ,ls to Duke, the university he coach's concern. Still, no en President Brodhead ap­ nitiative, to study the "cul­ among those selected to the ,f his ways ... two months mailing a letter directly to apology. Although Nartey's ?s, no sentence in this letter Agendas All Around 1 37 matched the effect of those six words he sent to Pressler shortly after the rape allegations became public. Nartey's letter to Pressler seemed sincere, but excerpts from his six lengthy paragraphs can summarize his thoughts in a condensed version. "I wholeheartedly apologize for referencing your daughter" in the "ostensi­ bly threatening email" to "a family that did not deserve such treatment." He tried to explain his intentions. "I simply wanted you to perhaps make the connection between how the families of the alleged victim might feel, especially when it appears as though the ALLEGED perpetrators were so insensitive as to continue forward with activities as though a national scan­ dal were not occurring underneath their noses," he wrote. And, as any true apology letter should conclude, Nartey made sure to suck up to the former coach, commenting on his character. He wrote, "From the moment you assumed your position until the day of your res­ ignation, you personified leadership and helped elevate the lacrosse team to a position among the elite." When asked in an interview for this book to clarify his actions, Nartey was less than enthusiastic, even threatening a lawsuit if his words were mischaracterized. Before refusing fur ther comment, he did explain why he believed his emails should not have been considered "a threat." "The email I sent-I sent two-I sent them from my Duke email address," Nartey said, explaining his twisted logic. "I sent them with my name attached. It wasn't like any anonymous thing. I knew I was going to be attached to it, so it wasn't any sort of threat." Nartey also admitted that it was "a mistake" to bring Pressler's daugh­ ter into the mix "just because I didn't think it would be so heavily miscon­ strued." He went on say, "It was a stupid thing to mention his daughter, in retrospect, but at the time I thought if somebody can't see why it's inap­ propriate to move forward with athletics in this sort of situation then perhaps that parallel could be drawn by incorporating somebody near and dear to him. And again, foolish, but the rationale was that you can draw the parallel." .....-i h's NoT AsouTTHETRUTH A Sincere or not, ic seemed even the most radical among the activists were beginning to realize the backlash aimed at the Duke lacrosse team and their coach might have been unjustified. ti How much did this event divide Duke? John Burness, Duke's vice presi­ dent, told a story of one student he encountered during the tumultuous days following the rape allegations. "I talked to an African-American kid earlier chis year and 1 asked her what her life has been like," Burness said. "This was a kid from New York. Her parents had no money. When she came down to look at Duke, she applied and was admitted. When she came down, she and her mother came down on a bus for fourteen hours or whatever the bus ride was, at­ tended that day, and then turned around and went back on the bus be­ cause they didn't have enough money to stay down. She gers in, she gets her financial aid, she does study abroad, she's taking advantage of this place exactly the way you'd want to do. She only had positive things to say about this place. "And I said to her, 'What about last spring [ 2006 ]?' There was a long pause and she said, 'You know, we all had co take a side. I never felt at any time in my time at Duke that I was being discriminated against, all I saw was the positive, and then last spring.' And she was one of chose who started talking about discrimination because folks had to take a side. That's what happens in white-heat environments like that. The mood on this campus, the ambiguity, the people feeling threatened, all that stuff was for many people incredibly real." The frenzy was so out of control everyone, even people without an opinion of their own, felt pressured to pick a side. Nor th Carolina Central University, a historically African-American col?· lege in Durham, was pulled into the fray when reports surfaced that Crys cal attended school there. While the case reverberated through Duke's Gothic halls, raising questions about divisions in race and class, NC chancellor James Ammons also understood the seriousness of the situa C h fi s• F a J. f s s r ' IT's NoT AeouT THE TRUTH he most radical among the activists sh aimed at the Duke lacrosse team tstified. ,ke? John Burness, Duke's vice presi­ encountered during the tumultuous n kid earlier this year and I asked her .aid. "This was a kid from New York. ;he came down to look at Duke, she he came down, she and her mother ,urs or whatever the bus ride was, at­ ·ound and went back on the bus be­ ·y to stay down. She gets in, she gets ,road, she's taking advantage of this lo. She only had positive things to say last spring [2006}?' There was a long U had to take a side. I never felt at any being discriminated against, all I saw ng.' And she was one of those who ,n because folks had to take a side. mvironments like that. The mood on ople feeling threatened, all that stuff Agendas All Around 1 39 tion. Ammons, along with Durham Mayor Bill Bell and several of the city's African-American leaders, met with Duke President Richard Brod­ head on Thursday, March 30, 2006, to discuss the case. "I guess one of the best ways to describe this is we have the potential for a perfect storm," Ammons told Fox News. "You have all of these is­ sues that we're going to have to discuss. He [Brodhead] wanted to feel the pulse of the community and he wanted our help in sharing information and our thoughts to help Duke deal with this situation." Attorney Joe Cheshire credited Ammons, who was named Florida A&M University's tenth president on February I, 2007, as a calming in­ fluence in the Duke case. "The guy that probably made the most impas­ sioned plea for sanity and reason was Chancellor Ammons," Cheshire said. "He's the guy who first used words like, 'Don't rush to judg­ ment ... the presumption of innocence' and all these kind of things. While Brodhead and his crew were just acting like those were dirty words and this was a done deal." Not everyone at NCCU was as reserved as Ammons. Law Professor Irving Joyner, whom the NAACP designated as "case monitor" on April 19, 2006, was repeatedly quoted by local and national media. Joyner wel­ comed it when the case shifted to state Attorney General Roy Cooper af­ ter Nifong asked to be relieved while he faced charges from the North Carolina Bar Association. "I think people may be surprised," Joyner told the Washington Post. "They are not going to bow to public sentiment." II rol ever yone, even people without an to pick a side. , a historically African-American col­ fray when reports surfaced that Crysthe case reverberated through Duke's ut divisions in race and class, NCCU :lerstood the seriousness of the situa· Father Joe Vetter, sixty, Duke's Catholic chaplain, walked down from the altar and stood in the center aisle between the pews and began his homily to parishioners on Sunday, March 26, 2006. As he referred to the day's Scripture readings, Father Vetter commented on how people, including himself. had become "desensitized" due to cultural trends. "Things that were really shocking to me not very long ago, I find kind of normal now," the bespectacled and balding Vetter said. It wasn't a normal Sunday morning at 610. h's A NoT AaouT THE TRUTH Father Vetter, who lives in a townhouse a few blocks from North Bu­ chanan Boulevard, drove past 610 to White Auditorium on Duke's East Campus for I I :00 A.M. Mass. There was a large crowd in front of the house-it was the infamous Sunday morning vigil, where pot-bangers and protesters carried "castrate" and "measure for measure" banners. Six min­ utes into his sermon, Father Vetter mentioned the lacrosse case, possibly becoming the first respected authority on the Duke campus co publicly share his opinion on the situation. The lacrosse team's home game against Georgetown a day earlier had been canceled, and the story had begun to take on a dangerous, twisted life of its own. "I always try to talk about a current topic and how it relates to the Scripture readings, and everyone was talking about the lacrosse situa­ tion-it was in the newspaper and on the news," Father Vetter said nearly a year later. "I have been concerned with the rumor that several Duke la­ crosse parents have been upset about what I said, but they are not talking with me about it direcdy, other than the few parents I either talked with or heard from after Mass." Father Vetter said in his homily that "we don't fully yet know what happened, and no one is guilty-everybody is innocent until th ey're proven guilty-but it seems pretty apparent something was going on there that was pretty bad the other night." He continued, "Apparently some­ thing happened the other night where it really got out of control. At least the person claims that she was raped, that she was beaten, that she had ra­ cial slurs used against her. And if all that's true, and if the people that were involved are convicted, then some young people are going to jail and pay some rea11y serious penalties for those crimes. That's really tragic, be­ cause I am sure that none of those people involved in chat incident had any idea that something like chat was going to happen. Nobody would se? that up. Nobody wanted that co turn bad-but it did." Father Vetter continued his homily and cited ocher examples of h people had become desensitized. While he did not mention the lacros case again, his comments directed at the team offended Bob and Do Wellington-their son, Rob, who attended that Mass with them, was. SC \t C< cl- h: w at m ]\, st I-: ar pc ti• ar 01 ):\ rr C 1' TRUTH th Bu­ 's East ,f the ·s and mmsibly ,licly inst 1 to the dy a- Agendas All Around sophomore midfielder on the team. Bob Wellington approached Father Vetter following Mass and reminded him of the presumption of inno­ cence and said part of a priest's job was to minister to Catholic players on the team. "His basic assumption was, of course, that the worst-case scenario had happened, and that these boys are prone to chis sort of behavior any­ way," Donna Wellington said. "A casual listener might have concluded that he had more facts than even the DA at that point. It was very humili­ ating for my son, who was sitting next to me. We were absolutely furious. My husband was fuming ... he (Father Vetter) was already condemning these boys without knowing any of the facts, and my husband told him chat he would deeply regret this when the real facts did get revealed." Father Vetter said he heard from two or three other lacrosse parents, including Duke Coach John Danowski, within a couple of days following Mass and said the conversations were cordial. Father Vetter said he under­ stood their concerns, but believed his homily message was misunderstood. His hope was to get "young people to understand their decisions to drink and party can carry serious consequences if not careful." Donna Wellington wasn't in a forgiving mood. "If a priest is going to rush to judgment, where can anyone go for sup­ port and counsel about surviving the inevitable barrage of false accusa­ tions, and finding spiritual strength and solace in God's eventual justice and truth?" she said. "I didn't know what to say to him other than to point out chat this was a man with obvious human frailties and prejudices, and chat he was very misguided." No Duke athletic team offered a stronger show of solidarity with the men's lacrosse team than members of the school's women's team. The Blue Devils wore sweatbands with the numbers of the indicted players in their NCAA semifinal game against Northwestern on May 26, 2006. Coach Kerstin Kimel, whose office was at the opposite end of the hall from that of Coach Mike Pressler in the Murray Building, actively sup­ ported her players' choice to show their support despite media criticism. 'I i l I 1 :l j h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH The women also had Pressler speak to rhe team a month after his forced resignation. "I think Mike has shown incredible restraint, personal strength, and fortitude to not allow his emotions override good judgment," said Kimel, voted the 2006 ACC Coach of the Year after she led her team to a school­ record eighteen wins and the third trip to the NCAA Final Four in schoo l history-the Blue Devils lost I I-IO in double overtime to North­ western. "To me, it's unbelievable," Kimel said. "Of all the adults who have been caught up in this tangled web, the person who was most affected was Mike. But Mike has shown just an incredible ability to deal and stay level­ headed and be smart and careful of what he said, unlike a lot of other adults who have not been very careful about what they've said and there­ fore have opened themselves up to be target of criticism or potential liability." Kimel also was one of the friends and athletic department officials who hosted an August 2006 shindig for Pressler before he left for Bryant University in Rhode Island, held at Duke's University Club. Many in at­ tendance wore Bryant Bulldog T-shirts chat were purchased by Pressler's coaching replacement at Duke, John Danowski. Kimd said Presslcr­ reluctantly-gave a speech. But it demonstrated his resolve to remain firmly but quietly behind his players. "I don't know if I could have done that if the roles had been reversed-I really. really don't know," Kimel said. "But the anger and the hurt-the hurt that is there-is so profound. I understand. You saw ic every day here in these offices." Kimel also had harsh words for administrators and faculty who re­ fused to support the men's program as scandal engulfed it, saying, "There was not a whole lot of courage displayed during this time. The thing that surprised me the most was how unprofessional the adults on this campus were, particularly faculty. The thing to me that was so hypocritical about all of it, you have these left-leaning faculty and they champion left-leaning causes and are, a lot of times, sticking up for people who are wrongly ac- l h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH : team a month after his forcrrl Agendas All Around 14 3 cused. They protest against the death penalty and all this stuff-injustice. And it was happening and unfolding right before their eyes and they didn't do anything about it. 'There are other people, and they are not sorry. I think they're a dis­ grace. I can't believe they call themselves or consider themselves educators. I am an educator. I would never treat ... they are an educator and to chem educating is their research and their focus. It's not the kids. For us, our whole mantra is we're in the kids business. We're here to educate them, prepare them for the real world. We are not on the same page that way. They don't really embrace that as part of what their responsibility is as an educator." The Chronicle recounted what the campus climate was like during the month after the charges became public: Surrounded on the quad in the middle of Duke's West Campus, lacrosse player (Bo Carrington] wanted to convince protestors that neither he nor any of his teammates were rapists. But Carrington, a sophomore, couldn't muster a word. "You know what happened chat night!" shouted one member of the crowd. "Why aren't you saying anything?" ... During those weeks m early April, Carrington and his teammates encountered pictures of them­ selves plastered around campus like WANTED posters. Posters chat, rn their minds, conveyed a predetermined judgment: guilty. The pl aye rs had had enough. How much longer were they expected to remain in hiding, to take the lashings from fellow students, their profes­ sors, and community members? Action needed to be taken to combat the growing public opinion that they were undoubtedly guilty. After the for­ feiture of the Georgetown game, with hopes of saving the remainder of their season, Pressler demanded a meeting with the one man he thought would be able to help: President Brodhead. Unbelievably, a crisis was ripping his campus apart, and Brodhead had 144 h's NoT ABOUT THE TRUTH yet co meet with che very people who sac at its epicenter. As Pressler and the captains were preparing to walk across campus co meet with Brodhead, the athletic director called, telling Pressler he was not invited to join the players ac the meeting. Stunned, he sent his four captains to meet Brod­ head without him. Only Brodhead, his senior staff, and the four captains were privy to the information discussed at chis meeting. Zash explains the reason for the meeting months lacer. "We wanted co meet with him co look us in the eyes," he said. "We wanted co reassure him chat nothing happened." And that is exaccly what they did. Although they repeatedly denied the allegations to Brodhead face to face, the captains were not asking him co pardon them for their irresponsible behavior "but to reserve judgment," Zash said. "I remember him saying at some point in the meeting something along the lines of, 'I hope for all of our sakes you guys are telling the truth,' " recalled Dan Flannery. "But he never specifically said, 'I believe your story.' " The captains offered more than their apologies co Brodhead that morning. They knew chat until the DNA results came back, the cloud hanging over them would not pass. To prove they understood the serious­ ness of che allegations and the distress ic brought to the university and the community, they offered to voluntarily suspend further competitive play until the DNA results were revealed. In their minds, the DNA would pro­ vide the tangible evidence they needed co prove their innocence. Brodhead graciously accepted their offer and announced it in a press release. However, despite Brodhead's emotional, and seemingly sincere, re­ sponses in the meeting, his statements in a press conference hours later would prove Flannery was right. He did not believe their story. In what Brodhead called "a slight modification" to the offer made by the captains, he said, "I have decided that future games should be suspended until there is a cltartr resolution of the ltgal sit11atio11." T he minor change Brodhead was referring co was not minor ac all. It made ic clear chat in his mind, the DNA results would not prove anything. 145 hey would not be the deciding factor for the future of the lacrosse team the captains had hoped."No match" would not exonerate anyone. Zash describes Brodhead's comments as "very vague in wording that 'asically left the ball in their court.It was just another thing that played into their hands." to the the 1ied ,rm nt," ong , h , ', ;our that loud Ithe play pro­ head ?. re­ later what tains, there is all. It thing. Jhough his job was to defend Brodhead, Vice President John Burness admitted several months later chat he was not sure whether the university president ever rMlly believed the lacrosse players. Brodhead, Burness said repeatedly, was in a tough spot, trying to react to "information he knew," and the statements of the lacrosse players were not placed by the president in the "fact" category. Nifong, on the other hand, was given the highest credibility by Brod­ head. The result: The president chose to believe a district attorney he barely knew over student athletes at his own university-and he made ev­ ery decision accordingly. "When somebody else [like the district attorneyJ is strong, it gives you a reason to believe that maybe they have a reason they're that strong," Burness said in an interview for this book."You say to yourself, I'm look­ ing back at ic, too, I'm saying to myself you have the district attorney of this county, who was a reasonably well-respected guy, who was not known as being a wild man. He didn't, that wasn't his reputation, as being a pretty thoughtful hard-nosed guy. He was so far out there in the things he was saying about the certainty that a rape had occurred and the knowledge that it had occurred by some of these kids. You have to then say, 'He's just making it up?' I don't think a lot of people were saying that right off the bat. "Nifong and the police were so incredibly strong in what they were saying," Burness continued. "He (Nifong] hadn't been a whack job throughout his career. He had a fairly good rep in this town ...The judges thought he was a solid, plodding sort of guy. Nobody had a sense that his integrity was in question." Through their words and actions, Brodhead and Burness made it dear h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH the integrity of the players was in question. They picked a side, choosing to believe Nifong. It would prove to be a horrible choice. One of the ways the lacrosse team held itself together was by gathering a list of names of chose who were targeting them. The list became known as the Grail. It was the ultimate cathartic exercise for the players. Keeping this run­ ning tally of all the people who slandered their names and reputations was their way of saying that one day, when all of this was over, these people would be held accountable. Then, they would be forced, the lacrosse play­ ers believed, to ask for some level of forgiveness. But the players need to make sure they remembered who these people were. Professors, students, activists, public officials, the media; the Grail spared no one. One player, one of the smartest on the team, was charged with the grave responsibility of keeping this list. His name was Erik Henkelman. He would become the "Keeper of the Grail." Every time they had practice or a team meeting, each player would be given the chance to report in. After each name was identified, Pressler would look at Henkelman and ask with a smile, "On the Grail?" The keeper would reply without haste, "Got it, Coach." The first ten to make the list included Alleva, campus activists, several reporters, Gotclieb, and a few pot-bangers. Bue the name written atop the Grail made it clear who the players felt was the first to betray them: "Dick Brodhead." Athletes are notorious for making up opponents. However, in this particular case, these were not faux opponents at all. They were very real. This was the lacrosse team's way of keeping score. CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE MEDIA D an Okrent saw it coming. When Okrent, who served as rhe New York Ti111es' ombudsman until 2005, saw the front page of the Times on March 29, 2006, he felt a national story brewing. "Ir had everything that would excite the right-thinking New York journalist: It was white over black, it was male over female, it was jocks over a nonstu­ dent, it was rich over poor," said Okrent, a longtime player among New York's media elite. Under the headline "Rape Allegation Against Athletes Is Roiling Duke," the nation's most influential newspaper announced the lacrosse scandal to the world. The decision by Duke President Richard Brodhead the day before to "suspend" che lacrosse season "until there is a dearer resolution of the le­ gal situation" ensured that the story would leap from the sports pages. Brodhead had been responding to local reporters as he moved quickly to punish the athletes, but by doing so, he "practically invited the Times to take up camp at Duke Chapel," one longtime media analyst said. And once the Times reserved a spot for this story on A-I, the national media genie was definitely out of the bottle. That same morning, NBC's Today show would open with "France on edge ... millions of protesters took to the streets closing down the Eiffel Tower.... On the sidelines, prestigious Duke University suspends its entire men's lacrosse team amid allegations of a gang rape." Both CNN and Fox News would begin months of daily coverage of the Duke case, and satellite trucks began streaming to the Durham campus. Newswuk would devote a cover to the story and, according to Duke Vice President John h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH' Burness, more than one hundred thousand stories would be written men. tioning the words Duke, lacrosse, and rape. The Times would also set up shop at Duke, pumping out nearly two dozen stories in the next two weeks-written by reporters from the news• paper's news, sports, education, science, and editorial departments. Okrent, in a speech to the Neiman Fellows at Harvard on April 13, 2006, made it clear that the power of the New York Times had turned the lacrosse story into a national event, and that he was a little concerned. "Had the Times not pounded that drum so much in the first several weeks-if they had reported the charges, run the story on A-1 l, and dropped it-it wouldn't have become a national media story," Okrent said, taking a look at the coverage nearly a year later. "The Tm,es put it on the cover of Newswuk. The Times made it a lead in the evening news broad­ casts. In nearly every American newsroom of any size, if you see the Times running something as prominently and as repeatedly as they did chis story, you say This is important.' Then you try to figure out how you can top it, how you can find something the Times didn't have. The competitive nature of journalism being what it is, if you're not first, you'd better have some­ thing new, something that distinguishes you. But in the twenty-four-hour news cycle, getting something better finishes a distant second behind get· ting something fast." As reporters flooded the Duke campus they found more than enough to fill their notebooks. Faculty, students, community activists, even the New Black Panther Party followed reporters to the story, all looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. Protesters banging pots, waving signs em­ blazoned with "Confess" and calling for the castration of players, chant­ ing, 'They must be rapists," and singing spirituals understood that the moment needed them, and they needed the moment. "It's like these fringe lunatics who were around the campus around Durham, that's who the media went after," said Debbie Krzyzewski Sava­ rino, a Duke fundraiser and the daughter of celebrated basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski. "If you had an intelligent, knowledgeable, calm opin­ ion of the whole situation, you were not to be interviewed. The media T THE TRUTH lT's NoT Asou The Media 1 49 looked at chose people and said, 'We would like for you to be hysterical. preferably carrying some form of kitchen equipment, yelling, going nutty. If you can do that, then you will be on TV today.But if you would like to say something that's calm, we'll move on to the next person holding a spoon and a pot. Everyone that was on TV was hysterical. "You hated coming to work," said Savarino, who proudly calls Sue Pressler her dose friend. "You hated it. It was awful. There is a love for this school that is ... you bleed true blue. It's just so deep. I've been this way since I was nine. People hate us because we're good. And you have to sit here and watch all these lies being told about our school, about your athletic program, and all these people are jumping on the bandwagon na­ tionally that Duke is elitist, that we are racists, that we have so much money that we are buying people off and ...it was awful." Yes, this was everything a New York reporter loved, and cable news reporters, too. It would be an obvious low point if there wasn't so much competition.On April IO, 2006, the day it was announced that the DNA samples taken ' from each of the forty-six lacrosse players had yielded no evidence that any player had raped the alleged victim, CNN's Nancy Grace turned to the equally outrageous Wendy Murphy to engage in a Duke lacrosse hate fest. Murphy, a former prosecutor who runs a Boston-based victims' ad­ vocacy group, is a regular on the talking-head circuit, ensuring repeat invi­ tations by making sure to be the most bombastic guest in the mix. Grace had already let her feelings on the case be well known, calling he players "rapists" in nearly every show in which the lacrosse case was entioned. On March 3 I, when she learned chat the team had played two ames since the night in question, she mentioned this fact on her program d snapped, 'Tm so glad they didn't miss a lacrosse game over a little ing like gang rape!" Later in that same broadcast she raved about the forthcoming NA evidence and the unquestionable convictions it would surely bring: he first line of defense is, 'I didn't do it.' The second line of defense is, h's Nor AaouT THE TRUTH 'I did it, but it was consensual.' The third line of defense is, 'She's a hooker.' Now, let's just say we get DNA back. They'll immediately claim consensual." The stage was already set for an attack on the team, and on April IO, Grace opened her show with an announcement of the "No DNA" press conference, but didn't take a breath before offering, "Did the perpetrators use condoms?" The rhetorical question would become pare of chat night's theme even though defense lawyers had made the point during the press conference that the alleged victim had told police her attackers had not, in fact, worn condoms. One of her guests that night was Larry Kobilinsky, a forensic scien­ tist. He offered an answer to Grace's question, suggesting, "It's not the la­ tex chat we look for. We look for the condom lubricant. Most condoms have some sor t of lubrication, and we do have tests for that. Failure to find that would indicate that condoms were not used." He then proposed two other possibilities that might account for the lack of DNA evidence from even one of the alleged attackers. Either they had all undergone vasecto­ mies or they were all sterile. Grace immediately jumped upon the point, demanding to know if such tests had been run to determine if traces of a lubricant had been found. When she was told that the tests had been conducted and had come back negative, she quickly diverted the line of questioning to a towel that was found outside one of the players' bathrooms, on which DNA match­ ing a player had been detected. Though the towel was found to contain DNA from a player who lived in the home and an unidentified person who was not present at the party, several of Grace's guests-led by Murphy­ seized the opportunity to turn the towel into a smoking gun, presented their own speculations as fact, and ironically, pointed the finger of blame at the defense team by accusing them of withholding information. "The most telling statement is what they didn't do, Nancy," Murphy insisted. "[The defense] didn't just turn over the results. Isn't chat interest­ ing, that the only thing they would give us was their characterization of what the report said. The Media "And I chink you absolutely hit the nail on the head when you chal­ lenged Dr. Kobilinsky about the significance of the negative findings be­ cause I think about 90 percent of rape cases involve no DNA at all, even with the available technology. And frankly, that towel, the towel in the bathroom, the deafening silence from the defense attorneys about what was found on the towel in the bathroom-how do you explain that? And I think Dr. Kobilinsky just didn't tell us an honest answer, frankly, to your 1 guestion, which is that the reason there was no DNA found in her body is because they finished the act, if I could be polite for a second here­ they finished the act outside of her body, on the towel. That's damning evidence!" Grace went along with chis speculation, and as the show progressed, it became increasingly clear that Murphy was the only guest to whom Grace 1 would give free rein to spout her theories. As Penny Douglass Furr, a crim­ inal defense attorney, spoke up to remind the panel that the crimes were only still alleged at this point, the following exchange about the towel took place. Furr: Well, Nancy, to me, it says they do live there. I mean, their DNA will be in the towel, all over the bathroom and all over the house. My con­ em is, if this woman did make chis up, she's ruined a lot of lives, and here needs to be someGrace: I'm asking you about the towel. Furr:-type of punishment for her. Grace: Before we start preaching ... Furr: The towel? They live there. They live there. They're going to­ Grace: Oh, okay. Furr:-have their DNA on the towel, in the bathroom, in the bed­ m. That is their bedroom. Grace: You don't chink it's pretty-a little bit of a coinky-dink-a incidence-that her torn-off nails are there? She says that's where she as attacked. And then you've got a towel with possible ejaculate in it. hat doesn't, like, strike you as disturbing? Grace's accusations of "preaching" were hurled later in the program h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH at another guest, defense attorney Lauren Lake, who attempted to voice a similar reminder that the players were only suspected and not convicted­ or even charged, ac this point-with che crime. Lake: Nancy, what's killing me right now we just had the prosecution bandwagon raring up and somebody is already saying these guys are rap­ ists. No, what they are, are alleged rapists. And you better believe I'd be the first one if they raped this young girl like, well, be done with you, go ahead and go. But we know right now that they are alleged rapists, and we should treat it as such. Grace: Okay. All right. Thank you for the sermon, Lauren. I've got a question for you. Lake: It's not a sermon. Grace: I have a question about the evidence. Can we cry to get back co the evidence? Lake: I was just talking about DNA. Grace was clearly seeking to establish unquestionable guilt regarding the players' actions while she continually badgered her dissenting guests. Meanwhile, Grace allowed Murphy uninterrupted, incendiary mono­ logues that painted wild speculation as truth and laid out imagined sce­ narios as if they were documented fact. "I mean, look, it's the face chat they cake an awful long time for the defense co come out and say anything meaningful," Murphy said. "And the silence is deafening in terms of why they didn't come forward right away and say, 'Look, we're all innocent.' What they did was clam up and say, 'Let's stick together so we can get away with chis.' "Look, I chink the real key here is that these guys, like so many rapists-and I'm going to say it because, at this point, she's entitled to the respect that she is a crime victim. These guys watch CS[, and they know it's a really bad idea to ejaculate on or in the victim. And maybe what she said, which makes her particularly credible, is, These guys didn't ejaculate on or inside of my body, which means she deserves extra credibility be­ cause no one's suggesting that she lied about whether there would be DNA found on her person. ' I I I The Media 1 53 "And Nancy, look, you know, why? W hy do we live in a culture peo­ ple are so willing co assume women are masochist enough to not only do all the things you describe but strangle themselves and tear their own vagi­ nas to make, what, a false claim look good? We would let women be per­ ceived as hysterical masochists rather than believe that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck? Can we use a little bit of common sense here? "Forget respect and disrespect for a minute! How about common sense and decency? A DA who was not born yesterday has said, after two weeks of investigation, I believe this woman was brutally raped and at­ tacked. And now, because of DNA-which never tells the whole story, ever-somehow, we're going to just abandon the case and celebrate the boys as, you know, having had a bad night?" Common sense? Unfortunately, no one on the show forced Murphy to use just that. Every significant "fact" she shared that night was com­ pletely incorrect. By the end of spring 2006, Grace had established a pattern of provocative and unsubstantiated statements regarding this case. She insisted that the accuser had never changed her story, despite police records co the contrary. She misunderstood and misrepresented the details of the case, at one point accounting for the lack of witnesses by explaining, "You've got co keep into account that a lot of the guys were probably downstairs." Sev­ eral critics would later point out that the Buchanan street house is only one story. On June 9, Grace had an especially spiteful rant at the very beginning of her show. One guest, Kevin Miller, a reporter with WPTF radio in the Durham area, pointed out that public opinion on the case was shifting, noting that "on the street in Durham, or in North Carolina, wherever, there's a high degree of skepticism, not only there within the community, but throughout it, everybody is wondering what Mike Nifong has. People are talking about a silver bullet. The bott9m line is, I've talked to defense sources, I've talked to everybody. Nobody knows what he has and it's 154 h's NoT AsouT THE TRur1-1 : starting to get very troubling on why this case is continuing. They seem to answer everything-these recent court documents, Nancy, pretty much answer all of the allegations and barring anything else, reasonable doubt is there." Grace pounced, seething: "Well, I'm glad you have already decided the outcome of the case, based on all of the defense filings.Why don't we just all move to Nazi Germany, where we don't have a justice system and a jury of one's peers? What about it, Joe Lawless? Why can you imagine would the defense put these allegations into court documents? It sounds like a little bit of trial by ambush." As the Duke case progressed and the tide of undeniable facts flooded the scene, Grace quietly dropped the subject, no longer featured Murphy on her program, and maintained a growing silence and lack of interest in the matter. Ruth Sheehan is no Nancy Grace. For that, the Raltigh NewJ & Observer is graceful. Sheehan, a twice-a-week columnist for the region's largest daily, was among the first to opine on the story. "When the story initially broke, everyone had a reaction to it," Shee­ han recalled in an interview eleven months later. "I think on Saturday [March 25] we had the interview with the alleged victim. It was on Sun­ day I called into the office. I already had a column in the can because I run on Mondays. But I called in about this story and they told me that there was another story with Nifong talking about how there was this wall of silence. That's when I decided on that Sunday to write my first column about the case. I try to write off the news as often as possible, especially when there's something big going on that people are really talking about. So I said I am going to try to put together a column for tomorrow and send it in. I have to write a column about what people are talking about. And everybody was talking about it. It was so outrageous, the stuff that was in the paper. Her story, Nifong's recounting of it. Oh, my God. It was just like ... you couldn't even believe it," Under the headline "Team's Silence Is Sickening," Sheehan excoriated The Media 155 the lacrosse team for failing to cooperate with police-unaware that they had already done just that. "Members of the Duke men's lacrosse team: You know," Sheehan wrote. "We know you know. Whatever happened in the bathroom at the stripper party gone terribly, terribly bad, you know who was involved. Ev­ ery one of you does. And one of you needs to come forward and tell the police. Do not be afraid of retribution on the team. Do not be persuaded that somehow this 'happened' to one or more 'good guys.' If what the strippers say is true-that one of them was raped, sodomized, beaten and strangled-the guys responsible are not 'good.' " Sheehan continued: "J can see the team going down chis path, justify­ ing its silence. And it makes me sick ... I don't know what happened in that house, and in that bathroom, over in Durham. Ultimately, that will be a matter for the cour t system to decide. But who was in chat room is some­ thing the police need to know. Now. They shouldn't have to wait for 46 DNA samples to be returned. Every member of the men's lacrosse team knows who was involved, whether it was gang rape or not. Until the team members come forward with that information, forfeiting games isn't enough. Shut down the team." As she wrote, Sheehan made dear that in her mind the stories bub­ bling up from Nifong's office and the Durham Police Department were true. She was not alone. "Back during that period, no one was telling us that the players had been cooperative," she said in a January 2007 interview. "I know now that that was not true. If I had known chat then, I would have never written what I did. I would have thought what is Nifong talking about? That's not a wall of silence then. How is that a wall of silence? "When I first wrote chat column, hundreds and hundreds and hun­ dreds of emails from people who thought the same way Aooded my mail­ box. I laugh now. Please understand I am only laughing at myself because the tide has definitely turned. I did have a conversation with (Duke Vice President] John Burness about the university's role in the case at some point and asked why when all of this was coming out that they [the uni- IT's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH versity] didn't help us understand the truth, why they didn't spin the other side to us. They could have helped us, chat's for sure. One thing he did say co me at chat time, which is a convenient excuse but also true, was that they also have to be really careful how they handle student information. That caution, I think, made things worse." A few days later, Sheehan would write about the lacrosse team's his­ tory of "out-of-control" behavior, a theme that was regularly being struck by Burness in off-the-record conversations with reporters. At the end of that column, Sheehan wrote that Burness had told her that "upholding Duke's standard" for player behavior was Pressler's responsibility. "So dump him," she wrote, two days before Duke did just that. At the time she was among the first to suggest in print that the coach be fired. As the case dragged on, Sheehan would write another half dozen col­ umns about the case. Finally, on New Year's Day 2007, Sheehan reached the point where her view on che case had taken a complete turn. "Every time I think the Duke lacrosse case cannot get any more excru­ ciating to watch-it does," Sheehan wrote in her column. "There was a moment of hope right before Christmas, when we got word that Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong was dropping charges. Finally! I thought. Nifong has come to his senses and is putting us all out of our misery­ from the three men charged in the alleged sexual assault of a dancer at their stripper party to the alleged victim herself. "But as it turned out, Nifong dropped only one of the charges in the case-rape-leaving the sexual assault and kidnapping charges to stand. These are charges, like rape, that could put the men behind bars for life. Nifong's explanation for dropping the rape charge only added to the ex­ cruciation factor: The accuser said she now cannot remember whether a penis was involved in the alleged attack. "I cringe just typing the words. As the victim of a date rape more than twenty years ago myself, I can attest that there are some details you can train your mind to glance over. Whether a penis was involved is a detail one is unlikely to forget." Sheehan wondered: "What kind of dimwitted fools does Nifong b? 'I' , ,.,.1 .. A -··--.,.-T....... ..-.. The Media 1 57 lieve us, and the potential jurors, to be? I ask this, of course, from some experience. I was one of the hopelessly naive who fell-hard-for Nifong's original depiction of the case." At that point, Sheehan accomplished another major first: she was among the few journalists who put in writing what everyone was then saying-I was wrong. Further, Sheehan told her readers she was sorry for not having been more critical of Nifong's version of events. "My thoughts on this case have evolved over time as many of our readers have," Sheehan said. "And I've written about that. I've tried to be as honest about that as possible. I am not sorry I wrote about it, but, yeah, I was suckered. I bought into his take of the case from the beginning. I also feel like I should have k nown better. I should have understood a pros­ ecutor can be suspect and this one certainly has been. "I am in a position to acknowledge my mistake because I am in an ongoing conversation with readers here. This is the community where I live. This is our little world, and it's a wonderful one. So, at times I've screwed some things up ... I've had a couple times where I've had to apol­ ogize for things in my column, and that's really hard. But that's what you have to do. Because that's what you do if you were in a conversation with your loved one, or your friend, your neighbor." Sheehan's early work drew the attention of another group that played an integral role in this story's development and its eventual outcome. Blog­ gers, a twenty-first-century new-media power, took to the Duke lacrosse case early, often, and with a vengeance. The power of the blogger is slowly being acknowledged by the main­ stream media. Their influence, on rare occasions, has actually outreached that of the media. One of the most notable examples of this is the now­ infamous National Guard letter disparaging George W. Bush's service during the !970s. Dan Rather broke the story on CBS News, hailing it as a major scandal that was sure to turn the tide of the 2004 election against Bush. Bloggers quickly picked up the story and soon proved that the docu­ ments were, in face, forgeries. h's NoT ABOUT THE TRUTH Bloggers were likewise responsible for exposing the untrue allegations, reported by CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan, that the U.S. mili­ tary was killing journalists in the Middle East. The blogging efforts brought the situation into the national spotlight and the resulting outcry against such journalistic misconduct eventually caused Jordan to resign. As the New York Times and Nancy Grace proved, there weren't many highlights for those analyzing the media's performance in coverage of thr Duke lacrosse team case. But as the story played out, two did become ap­ parent: the work of several bloggers and the consistent effort of the small­ est newspaper on the beat-the student-run Duke Chronicle. Many news outlets, recognizing the online trend, were beginning to start developing biogs of their own on their official websites. Sheehan re­ called how the timing of the Duke story coincided with chis upswing of interest: "The story broke right when we were getting our biogs off the ground. Newspapers are trying in their own way to be a more significant presence with up-to-the-minute news online. We just reorganized our en­ tire newsroom to do this." Unfortunately, some bloggers used the anonymity offered by their medium to make outrageous claims and vitriolic accusations. Sheehan witnessed the trend firsthand. "When we first started really communicat­ ing more by email," she said, "a lot, especially in the South, of the niceties of person-to-person conversation kind of flew out the window because people can just blast you by email. Even today people are stunned when I respond and I am like a nice person and say, thanks for your note. Then they often reply back, 'Oh, my God, I am so sorry.' I think the blogo­ sphere, especially these guys, I don't know if it's a test of their manhood, but the more extreme, the more they can challenge the people who they chink are the bad guys in this, the better. And there's plenty of bad guys, so there's plenty of people to go after. They try to get as far out there on that as they can; I think it increases their blog traffic. "I will be curious to see what happens to some of these guys," she continued. "I am always very tempted to reply back to some of chem and ask what exactly are you going to do in two months when the criminal The Media 1 59 charges are resolved? W hen we put the whole thing to bed? W henever, however many months it is. Or, I guess, eventually when the civil cases are resolved, they will be able to eke some more out of that. K. C. Johnson is the most even-handed of them. And he actually has done a little bit of reporting of his own. I think that is one value of the blogosphere. There are times they've been embedded in all the attacks, there are some times they actually break some news." K. C. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College in New York, is, indeed, a notable exception. Few would expect this Matthew Broderick lookalike, bow-tie-wearing academic, living five hundred miles away from Durham, to take a special interest in a case involving athletics, rape, and local politics. Johnson, however, would disagree. He was blogging on a site called Cliopatria, with the History News Network, in March 2006 when the story broke. Immediately, he recog­ nized it as a headline-grabbing case that would have staying power in the national news, no matter the outcome. And he saw the role of faculty in the Durham debacle. So his blog entries began, and in July, he started his own online forum dedicated to the case, calling it Durham-in-Wonderland. He anticipated that the blog would remain active for two co three months, receiving up to a thousand visitors a day while the case resolved itself in the national spotlight. His first post on the subject received zero com­ ments. Bue things changed rapidly. The site was soon seeing more than fifteen thousand hits per day and the comments regularly topped several hundred on each posting. In fact, by the start of 2007, Durham-in-Wonderland was approaching the daily readership of the local newspaper, the Durham Herald-Sun. "My early goal was to give a place for people with no voice to express their anger and opinions," he told a class of communications stu­ dents at Florida State in January 2007. 'The further this went, the more I wanted to reach a goal of beating the readership of the Herald-Sun. They were doing such a terrible job of covering this story, I thought it would be great to be able to be their counter." 160 IT's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH To many interested in the Duke case, Johnson's blog became required morning reading. The site was often the first to offer commentary on breaking stories and new developments. Unencumbered by the twenty­ four-hour news cycle of print or the broadcast restrictions of network taping, the blog could be updated almost instantly, offering fresh discus­ sion on the latest in a constantly changing case. Durham-in-Wonderland also offered readers a well-organized and easily accessible cache of articles, links, timelines, photos, and commen­ taries on every aspect of the case. His organizing topics included media, faculty, administration, Nifong, politics, police, procedure, and medical. The blog provided visitors the opportunity to evaluate the evidence them­ selves, read reports and quotations, and learn about actions of local groups that went largely ignored in the national press. Many credit Johnson's reporting on the faculty conduct as one of the main reasons thai: syndicated news ouclets began to finally pay attention to the irrational behavior of many within the university's power structure. Johnson's blog was not the only outlet for these otherwise overlooked and under-represented in the call for real justice. United by a common cause, Durham-in-Wonderland offered links to such other like-minded sites as Liestoppers and Duke Students for an Ethical Durham. These sites helped to raise public awareness and understanding of the case to a new level that was independent of the news controlled by the traditional media, and it was instrumental in creating a new demand for broader coverage. There was another small but loud voice offering up alternative coverage c of the story, and that was the Chro11ilt, Duke's own student newspaper. Stephen Miller, a student columnist, led the charge. He published a series of articles challenging the handling of the case by both the Durham DA's office and the school's administration. On August 28, 2006, he published an article entitled "Persecution" in which he outlined in detail several of the many intentional misrepresen- I The Media tations of the case by Nifong, many of the Duke faculty, and members of the media. Then Miller appealed to his fellow students, "Now, cake a breath and remind yourself that this isn't fiction. The madness is real and the stakes enormous. Lives, futures, hopes-all on the line. "As the story unfolds a national magnifying glass will continue to be held over our campus and as a student body we have a moral duty to act with dignity and to demand fair and just treatment for our peers-no slander, no abuse, no prejudice tolerated. "And lastly, if you find yourself in the presence of a student who in­ sists the lacrosse players are a bunch of racist criminals and that the play­ ers are guilty no matter what the evidence says-put them in their place. "If you don't, I will." And he did. Throughout the summer and fall, Miller appeared on several national television programs, calling for unbiased reporting on the case and fair representation of the players. Some hosts, like Bill O'Reilly from Fox News, were receptive co the call and allied with Miller's cause. "It really began escalating the pressure about that ad," Miller said about his inter­ view with O'Reilly regarding the Group of 88's "We're Listening" ad. "I think that's the thing-it was always apparent that at the beginning the people turned it from an issue about a specific charge about a specific situ­ ation into all-out class and race and gender warfare." Nancy Grace, he recalled, was among the lease gracious hosts he en­ countered. She "flipped out" when Miller suggested chat the players should be regarded as innocent until proven guilty. The Chronicle continued its campaign for fair coverage into the follow­ ing school year, running a February 12, 2007, article by Miller entitled "Alums: Withhold Your Support." Miller offered the following plea to donors: "If we truly love Duke, and truly support its students, then we will take action to repair the University we love and to protect alI its stu­ dents present and future. If we truly love Duke, then we will demand that it live up to its ideals. "What sense is it for alumni to criticize Duke, see Duke be totally ' I. h's NoT AaouT THE TRUTH unresponsive to their criticisms and then to keep the checks rolling in? Is it any wonder Duke perpetually ignores the grievances of its students and alumni? ... "The faculty handbook, which lays out some very basic professional standards to which professors must adhere, forbids attacks on students such as those we saw in the wake of the lacrosse allegations. The ad from the Group of 88 goes against almost every tenet of what it means to be a professor. Yet Brodhead refuses to issue even a verbal condemnation.... "The best thing we can do for the students of Duke, and our many great professors, is to use the power of alumni support to institute changes for the good of all and to propel Duke beyond every other major univer­ sity in the nation that suffers the crippling problem of radical faculty and weak administrators." Miller was only one student reporter with a cause; there were many others who shared his passion. During the summer of 2006, the Chronicle ran a story called "Living the Nightmare." Student reporter John Taddei offered personal stories and narratives from the lives of not only the indicted lacrosse players, but other members of the team whose lives had been thrown into chaos by the accusations. It was an important piece in reminding his readers that there were more than just three men on trial-there was an entire team whose lives and reputations had been sullied in front of the entire nation by charges that had already been shown to be largely unfounded. In January 2007, the Chronicle ran an interview chat student Rob Copeland had conducted with President Brodhead in which he respect­ fully but pointedly posed the questions that had been on the mind of many students. "If you were Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty," he asked, "would you wane to come back to a campus where professors have denounced them and where students have held protests against them personally?" Copeland confronted the actions of the faculty, too: "Let's talk about the attention Duke's faculty has received in chis case, in particular the The Media members of the so-called Group of 88. Do you hold the faculty to a higher standard? Should they understand the legal process, and recognize that it's not appropriate to speak about their individual students to the national press?" President Brodhead's responses were calculated, but not always on tar­ get. In fact, he completely avoided some of the more direct challenges. The university paper ran the exchange, recognizing the importance of highlighting the administration's questionable conduct, even if very few other media outlets would. In face, many of the student newspaper's reporters wrote aggressively about the case, conducting interviews and voicing displeasure at the man­ ner in which their school was being portrayed as an elitist, racist institu­ tion ... and frustration with the faculty conduct that was allowing it to be portrayed that way. It was one of the many ironies of the case that the nationally creden­ tialed media and practicing attorneys had to be reminded by bloggers and a group of students that "due process" and "innocent until proven guilty" were more than just textbook phrases. The vicious cycle of media coverage quickly grew into a self­ perpetuating monster. Nifong needed the media and they proved to be willing participants in his little circus. When he spoke, they listened. When he ranted, they rubbed their hands excitedly and greedily consumed his every word. The reporters teased out every sordid detail that they knew the audience would lap up and came back asking for more, and Nifong was happy to dish it out again. Even some among the faculty recognized the buzz this case had gener­ ated and jumped at the opportunity for their own moment in the spot­ light. It was a chance to create a name for themselves outside the insular, specialty-specific window of fame they currently enjoyed in academia. And as the media orgy progressed, few-very few--dissenting voices dared to question the trend. Joe Neff and Benjamin Niolet of the Rakigh News & Observer had offered responsible reporting, but their reasoned h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH voices were easily drowned out by the shouts for more scandalous details during the early days of the case. The bloggers and the student reporters were largely ignored at first, as well. But as the media began the gradual shift of its sympathies away from Nifong, it became clear that he was none too pleased by his loss of the spotlight. On June 19, 2006, Newsweek printed part of an angry email he . sent to a reporter who had dared to run an article questioning the validity of the case. "None of the 'facts' I know at this time, indeed, none of the evidence I have seen from any source, has changed the opinion that I ex­ pressed initially," he stormed. " ... The only people I have co persuade will be the twelve sitting on the jury, and if you wane to know how I am going to do that, you will need to attend the trial. If in the meantime, you and other 'journalists' want to continue your speculations in the competi­ tion to come up with the most sellable story ... then please spare me the recriminations when you get things wrong, as you inevitably will." The damage had been done, though. Even as the charges dissolved, the social sentence had already been handed down to the accused and the rest of the lacrosse team. "Until a year ago," Mike Pressler lamented in early 2007, "if you looked my name up you found stories about good lacrosse. Now, if you Google the words "Mike Pressler," "Duke," and "rape" you'll come up with more than one hundred thousand hits. Those stories will be out there forever." Perhaps Okrent best encapsulated the sentiment that the players and their families felt in surveying the damage that his former paper, among many others, had helped to cause. 'Tm reminded of Reagan's labor secre­ tary Ray Donovan," he said, "who asked, after he was acquitted of what­ ever he'd been accused of, 'Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?' That's the question I have for the Times. What are they going to say to these three young men or their families? It incenses me, because I be­ lieve in fairness, and it saddens me, because I believe in the Times." I h's NoT ABOUT THE TRUTH CHAPTER FIFTEEN "IT's NoT ABOUT THE TRUTH ANYMORE" M ike Pressler can't tell you what time he awoke on April 5. Mostly that's because he can't remember if he went to sleep the night before. Day by day, the press had been getting worse. And despite the fact he was sure-absolutely positively sure-that his players had not committed the crime they were being accused of. he wasn't sure how many outside his household shared his confidence. After pacing the living room of his dream home of fifteen years in the Duke Forest neighborhood all night, Pressler dressed and "headed in for another day of battle." As Pressler pulled on his jacket, his wife, Sue, gave him a kiss and a hug. This morning, the hug lasted a little longer. At 10:00 A.M., Pressler got the first clue that his day was headed downhill. Athletic Director Joe Alleva summoned the coach to his office, where Se­ nior Associate Athletic Director Chris Kennedy and Alleva waited. "Alleva said the situation has gotten out of hand and they must cancel the season immediately," Pressler said. "I was shocked. I respond by say­ ing, 'You promised the players to their face there would be no more forfei­ ture of games unless charges were brought. What new has happened? Joe, you told the players and the parents you believed their story, you believed in chem, you believed that they were telling the truth. It's all about the truth; we must stand for the truth.' "Alleva looked right at me and made the statement I'll never forget as long as I live: 'It's not about the truth anymore,' he said. 'It's about the 166 h's NoT ABOUT THE TRUTH integrity of the university, it's about the faculcy, the city, the NAACP, the protesters, and the other interest groups.' "I was dumbfounded. I told him that if he was worried about the players' safety from the protesters on game day, he should hire a thousand security guards. If it was football or basketball that is exactly what he would do. But it is lacrosse and we are expendable. I said, 'We are educa­ tors first and foremost. Now we are saying to the players the truth only matters when it is convenient.' " Then Pressler pleaded: "Joe, the DNA results are imminent and you know that there will be no match. Just wait a few more days and we will have verification of what we all believe. Just a few more days." The words hung out there. Just a few more days. After forty-five minutes, Alleva agreed. "Okay, we will wait," he told Pressler. "You can continue to practice and prepare to go to Ohio State on Saturday." T he coach walked out of Alleva's office in Cameron Indoor Stadium and quickly called his wife. "I feel like we had won a stay of execution," he told Sue. The stay didn't last long. Forty-five minutes later, Sue Pressler called her husband. A local television station was running a promo for its noon broadcast. Startling news in the lacrosse case was promised. "Sue called to tell me that the noon news was going to include release of an email from Ryan McFadyen," Pressler said. "She said I should come home to watch the news. I had heard about the email, knew that the police had gone to Ryan's dorm room (at Eden Hall) and taken his computer. I heard the email wasn't good, but truthfully I didn't focus on it because that seemed to be the least of our worries." A reporter standing there live with Duke Chapel in the background read from a search warrant unsealed by a judge that morning. "Tomorrow night, after tonight's show, I've decided to have some strippers over to Eden 2C," Mcfadyen wrote in the email, which was sent at I :48 A.M. on March 14, about an hour after the party at 610 had ended. "All are wel­ come. However there will be no nudity. I plan on killing the bitches as "It's Not About the Truth Anymore" soon as they walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off while cumming in my Duke issue spandex." "The news station reported the wording of McFadyen's email straight from a document given to them," Pressler said. "What the reporters didn't know-and I wouldn't learn for some time-was that someone had ed­ ited Ryan's email leaving no context for it." The reference in McFadyen's email is from American Psycho, required reading in several Duke classes. "All 1 knew at that moment," the coach said, "was that I had to find Ryan. The reporter had shown his picture from our media guide and I had co make sure he was safe." Pressler didn't stay to discuss the story's ramifications with his wife. He raced out of the house and back toward campus, furiously dialing McFadycn's cell number. "I was wor ried about his well-being," Pressler said. "I was worried that they had shown his picture and in the craziness that something could happen to him." At I :00 P.M. Mcfadyen finally returned Pressler's call. He was sitting in the office of his attorney, Bob Ekstrand. He was safe, bur admitted to being a little scared. "I went immediately to see him," Pressler said. "He started to explain the email, but I let him know that wasn't important. His well-being was the priority. Ekstrand and I agreed that Ryan should stay there for the time being." On his way to Ekstrand's office, Pressler's constantly buzzing cell phone showed an incoming call from the athletic director. The words were short. "Mike, I need to see you immediately," Alleva said. Pressler prom­ ised he would get there after he checked on Mcfadyen, a delay that didn't sit well with the AD. "I walked into Alleva's office about one-thirty-five," Pressler recalled. "It was just him, me, and Chris Kennedy." No pleasantries were exchanged. Kennedy, who takes daily four-mile jogs around campus, was dressed in his running gear but, for some un­ known reason, had decided not to take his run that day. The professional execution rhat Pressler had stayed three hours earlier was almost assuredly at hand. I I ij ,, ,, 168 h's NoT ABOUT THE TRUTH "Alleva immediately said the email was very bad," Pressler read from his diary. "He said our season was immediately canceled and I had to re­ sign by 4:30 P.M. that day or take an interim suspension until a committee report on the program is furnished to the president-which is the investi­ gation of the program. He told me the president will be holding a press conference at four-thirty announcing the season's end and my resignation. It was a kick in the gut. I asked Joe who was firing me, him or Brodhead? He hesitated and said, 'I am firing you.' In my mind, I thought, 'Even at the very end he can't tell me the truth.' I wasn't sure what to say, so I emo­ tionally blurted out what I estimated my total compensation was worth. "I looked directly at Joe and reminded him he had told the players he believed them. I said, 'Joe, if I knew this was true and my players had not turned themselves in, I would have turned chem in to the police immedi­ ately, I would have offered my resignation, and I would have encouraged you to end the program. I would have done so in a New York minute. But with the same zeal, I am telling you they didn't do it. They didn't touch that person.' I have said from the very beginning of this that if you believe, you stand all the way-you can't have it both ways-if you believe, you stand. "I knew the minute I stood up and said I believed the players that this could cost me in the end. To this day, if you asked me, I would do the same thing again. I could have not supported the players and probably saved my job, just as Alleva and the administration were doing-condemn those guys and distance myself from them. I wasn't doing that because we as coaches boil it down to the bottom line, we are bottom-line guys, right? "And in times of adversity, you have to be a bottom-line guy, and you have to take a stand. What do you stand for here? Like my daughter Janet said, 'If you believe in the truth, why do you need a good memory?' And that's what it came down to: the truth. If you are to build anything in chis life, you can talk about loyalty, honesty, trust, all that-it comes down to the truth. If you base everything on the truth and doing the right thing, everything else is secondary. Joe Alleva wasn't hearing a word I said. "My head was spinning. I walked out of there and headed to my office I "It's Not About the Truth Anymore" and called Sue at home. I asked her to fax me my contract immediately, largely because I wasn't really sure what I earned. The previous year, com­ ing off the national championship game, Alleva had offered me a three­ year extension. There was a substantial raise, a car allowance, and security when he said to me, 'Mike, as long as I'm athletic director, you're my la­ crosse coach.' Sue and I were so confident we'd be at Duke forever that we built an extension on our home, the home we always dreamed of It was unprecedented for a nonrevenue coach, unprecedented. For sports other rhan football and basketball, all coaches have one-year contracts. "As Sue was looking for the contract, I called my lawyer, Eddie Fal­ cone, and left an urgent message. No one could find Eddie. They told me he must be in court. I asked my assistants Kevin Cassese and John Lantzy to get the players together immediately, that I was calling an emergency meeting at 4:30 P.M. No questions asked. Everyone knew chis was the low pomt. "I knew that Brodhead's press conference was scheduled for four­ thirty-he would announce my 'resignation' to the world, the creation of a handful of committees to study every aspect of this thing, and finally that Duke was suspending the lacrosse program. With that bomb coming out of the president's office, the players had to hear ic from me first. "At the same time, I had to settle my contract question and I basically had ninety minutes to do so. Once I got hold of my lawyer, he raced over. We went back to talk to Alleva. I had come up with some numbers in my head and I said, 'Joe, if you want me to resign this is what I believe I'm owed.' Joe said, 'Okay, I think we can do this.' While Eddie and I left and went back to my office, Alleva called up to the administration building. He called us back to his office in twenty minutes shaking his head and said, 'Mike, you are not going to be happy with this. They ( the adminis­ tration] are not going to give you what you asked for, what we agreed upon. The university counsel has said we can fire you with cause.' I lost it. "What? What cause? What did I do?" I said, my voice rising. "This is about your players and their past disciplinary problems," he said. 170 h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH "Joe, that's bullshit and you know it. You knew about all of those in· cidents two years ago. We dealt with those. You also know that majorit; of those problems [player citations for open containers, and so on) I was never aware of because the dean of students office did not make me aware of them. Joe, you are holding me accountable for things I didn't know. You know that, and I know that." Alleva sat silent. "They basically gave me no choice," Pressler said. "Either I had to take a less than fair, unsatisfactory settlement or get fired with cause. My only other option was to accept an 'interim suspension' and wait until a report on my program was done by a committee of the president's choos­ ing. I had no option. Ac that time, I said to myself, 'If I resign, I gee sever­ ance of some kind. If I roll the dice and take the suspension until the end of June, they rule that I am at fault for some reason, they fire me in June and I get nothing.' With a wife and children, I couldn't risk being fired with cause and having no severance and no benefits. "But maybe the part of this that bothers me most is that after sixteen years building a program for Duke, sixteen very loyal years, I was being given an hour and a half to decide my future." As Duke knew he would, Pressler "resigned." Then, as he prepared to walk the two hundred yards from Alleva's office to the meeting room at the Murray Building where the players awaited his announcement, Alleva threw one last curve. "Do you want me to go?" Alleva asked Pressler. "I can help handle this for you or talk co che team myself." "Are you fucking kidding me?" Pressler said to himself. "I smiled because it cold me how out of touch the man was," Pressler recalled months later. "I told him, 'I got it, I want the players to hear from me exactly what went on today.' But I was saying to myself. 'If he goes over there with me, this guy will not make it out of that room alive.' "On the short walk over I noticed reporters out of the corner of my eye. They were snapping pictures and racing toward Chris Kennedy and me as we headed in for the worst meeting of my life. My youngest brother "It's Not About the Truth Anymore" 171 died three years ago of a heart attack at age forty-one. I had to eulogize him and that doesn't even compare to what I was getting ready to do. "W hen I walked into the building, the assistant coaches were there. I pulled them aside and told them what was happening. Then we walked in to the meeting room. All forty-six players were present-everyone except Ryan McFadyen, who was suspended that afternoon by the dean of stu­ dents and told he could not step back on campus. The coaches were there, our trainer, sports information, Chris Kennedy, and myself. "I start the meeting by looking right into the eyes of the seniors, who were sitting in the front row as usual. 'Gentlemen, our darkest hour has arrived.' I paused and I could sec their eyes welling up. 'The season has 1 been canceled and I am resigning, effective immediately, as the head men's lacrosse coach at Duke.' Within seconds mass hysteria broke out. I contin­ ued to speak to the team, emotional myself. I said to the guys, 'You are not responsible for this, you did not do this. It is not Ryan McFadyen's fault. It is the administration that did this to us. It is the prosecutor who did this to us. We have paid our price for that evening of March 13, all that has occurred after that is not your fault, guys. You didn't get me fired. You , didn't cancel the season.' I wanted to try to make it a very, very positive spm-I am not sure they heard a word I said because of the anguish, the emotion-and I've never-I'm crying my eyes out and trying to hold it together. "Gentlemen," I said, 'Someday we will have our day. Someday I will tell the world the truth. I promise you all the lies, all the myths, all the in­ justice will be made right. Someday we will tell the world the truth. I romise you.' " Players began begging Pressler not to resign, missing that the choice as not his. They asked questions, most of which he could not answer. he pendulum of emotion swung from fear to anger, from pain to guilt. ven good friend Kennedy felt remorse. Kennedy had recommended to ressler earlier that day that Pressler resign. "It's the one piece of bad ad­ ·ce I game him," said Kennedy, who regretted his words for many months. h's NoT ABOUT THE TRUTH Despite Pressler's constant assurance, players felt guilty that their party had cost him his career. The coach attempted to end the meeting on as positive a note as possible. One by one, each player came forward. Coach and player hugged and Pressler quietly whispered in each young man's ear a few words of encour­ agement. Mostly, he told his team to remain just that, a team. "Stick to­ gether and always stand up for the truth." As the players ran from the meeting room, reporters descended. "It was sick," the coach said of watching each player head into the media maelstrom. Pressler turned to Chris Kennedy. Voice cracking, the proud coach asked simply, "Dr. K., how did I do?" "The most amazing thing I have ever heard in my life," Kennedy said. The two couldn't hold back their tears. According to his players, Pressler was a rock during the darkest days. "Sometimes you ask yourself what you learn from people," Dan Flan­ nery said. "I don't have to ask what I learned from Coach Pressler. He showed more class, more strength, and more dignity than anyone in chis whole situation. I can confidently say chat the meeting on April 5, when coach resigned, chat was the worst meeting of my life and will be the worst meeting of my life. Duke took his livelihood away for something we did. And he was a complete stand-up man. I will keep that the rest of my life." "Coach P. was the one person who was keeping it all together," defenseman Tony McDevitt said. "None of us really suspected that Coach P. was going to get fired. We walked in chat day thinking we are going for another meeting. Coach looked exhausted. He did his best to stay strong. He was at a loss for words. Everyone was crying and he was being strong, doing it for us. It felt so wrong. I remember leaving the meeting, tears in my eyes because I was watching a guy I looked up to in so many ways and a guy who took a chance on me, my coach, a friend, a mentor, everything. And everything has just been taken from him. I remember calling my "It's Not About the Truth Anymore" 173 mom, she was at work, and I remember telling her this is so wrong what happened to this poor guy. That was the climax of the disaster. It was April 5. It couldn't get worse than chat day. "The one thing Coach reassured us of several times in that meeting was that we would get through this. 'I am going to be here for you guys, I am not going anywhere,' he said. 'Duke has decided to go the way they wanted to go, but I am not part of that. I am still here for you guys. You are my kids. You are my students, my athletes, and I am going to be here.' It was amazing. He could have been screw you, I am gone. F-u, Duke. That's not his way. He had too much loyalty to his players. He was big in those next coming weeks because it only got harder for us. It only got harder. And he was there for us." But as strong as Pressler was on campus, his time at home was more challenging. While Mike Pressler faced the daunting task of explaining the day's events to his players, Sue Pressler had a challenge that was just as great: telling their children. "At about four-forty that day, our oldest daughter, Janet, came home," Sue said. "I had called the mother of her best friend, Billy Zarzour, and had asked if he could come over so that Janet had someone in addition to us when she got home. When she walked in, I told Janet, 'Daddy's re­ signed. He's not working at Duke anymore.' She cried, was very emotional with me, and hugged me, and she said, 'Can I go tell Billy?' He had gone up to her room to play Playstation, and I said, 'You can tell Billy because that's why he's here.' "She went upstairs and they disappeared and I don't really know all that they discussed. What she told me later was that Billy 'cried with me and he got on my computer and deleted my MySpace and Facebook pages so no one would write things.' That was thoughtful. It was interesting that Billy took the initiative that day to withdraw Facebook. Smart kid. "A hundred plus people would ultimately come to our house that night and I think there was something really good in it for Janet. The next 1 74 h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH day, she said, 'I saw people cry that I had no idea knew how to cry!' That day, and I think there's people chat can relate to chis, Janet was able to see what her dad meant to people, and what he did for people. It was really a cool gift. Being a teenager and seeing that and gaining a different level of appreciation for her parent. I might be looking for a silver lining, but that's a pretty valuable one." After the team meeting, Pressler, his coaches, Sports Information Direc­ tor Art Chase, trainers, and administrative staff had retreated to an up­ stairs office for a few minutes together when Chase's cell phone rang. It was Sue calling: "Art, don't let Mike come home right now," Sue said. "The TV trucks and reporters are everywhere in our front yard. Please stay away until they leave." Mike had other ideas. "I met with the staff and briefly exchanged a few final words and hugs," he said. 'Then I decided I was going home to be with my family. I was not going to lee anyone-especially reporters­ keep me away. Art offered to drive me the two miles to my house." Unbeknownst to Mike, Sue had called her best friend, Debbie Krzy­ zewski Savarino, a Duke fundraiser and the daughter of legendary basket­ ball coach Mike Krzyzewski. "Debbie dropped what she was doing, left work, and was at our house ten minutes later," Sue said. "She saw that I was struggling to manage the phone and she just took over. It was one of the great gifts we received that day." "When Sue called," Savarino said, "I could barely even recognize her voice she was so shaken. All she said was, 'Well, it's over.' I drove straight to her house. There were TV cameras outside. Not a lot, but there were some. I thought 'This is crazy. My girlfriend is inside upset. Her husband has lost his job, and there are TV cameras in their yard? What is the world coming to?' "I drove straight up into her driveway," Savarino said. "I can remember Sue saying, 'You don't have to pull into the driveway if you don't want any­ body to see your car.' I asked, 'What the hell are you talking about?' She said, s Not About the Truth Anymore" 175 · okay. If you want to park in Sheryl's driveway that would be fine.' She ught I might not want to be seen, which was absurd. I am proud to have ·' e and Sue Pressler as my friends. I drove up with my big old Duke li­ e plate, parked in the driveway, and walked into the house. I hugged her y tight and I started to cry. I didn't know the details but I didn't ask. I t figured they would come out when they needed to. I should stand there, should just be there. As I started to cry, Sue said, 'It's all right. It's going to all right. Those boys are the focus. That's why we need to be strong. at's what this is about.' She was right. It's about them. It wasn't about a ob. We would fix that lacer. It was about the players." One by one, coaches and others from the athletic department fol­ lowed Savarino to the Pressler house. Soon, much of Duke's athletic staff ' s there, as were neighbors, friends, and others. "All of a sudden it's like a party," Savarino said. "It was a celebration of the undying loyalty Mike and Sue had for their players. It was beauti­ , ful. If you could have seen these grown men from the athletic department and all of them crying, all of them, it was ... it's what I was saying before, this mutual admiration society. "Sue's phone is ringing off the hook. Home phone. Her cell. All phones are ringing off th? hook. I said to her, 'Stop. You are not answer­ ing the phone anymore. I am answering it.' So I took out a pad of paper and I sat my butt down at the kitchen table and I started answering the phone and taking messages. Oh, my gosh, everyone from former coaches from other schools, ACC coaches who are in the league now, friends of Mike's in the lacrosse world, to Larry King called. I answered the phone, 'Presslers' residence.' 'Hello, this is Larry King calling. Yes, I wanted to know if I could speak to Mike Pressler.' 'No, you can't talk to him.' He said, 'Well, we are on live.' I said, 'That's great, but I am sorry, he's unavail­ able right now, may I take a message for him.' Barbara Walters. It was cra­ ziness. I filled up two pages, single-spaced on a yellow legal pad. And that was without writing down a lot of reporters who were calling. It got to be funny. You laugh when things are getting so tough. "Finally I asked Sue who she would talk to. W ho do you feel like talk- h's NoT AsouT THE TRUTH ing to? Sue said, 'Oprah. If Oprah calls ... ' and we just laughed. I was like, if Oprah calls we're going. Are you kidding? I am with you. I want it to be on the dream day at Oprah when gifts are under the seats. That's when we're going. She was like, yes. That was the only person Sue would speak to. But Oprah didn't call." About that time, Mike made it home. "When we arrived, TV trucks were everywhere," Mike said. "There was a helicopter, a TV helicopter, hovering over the house. It was a media circus outside my door, micro­ phones in my face, reporters talking to my neighbors. My neighbors actu­ ally formed a gauntlet so I could get up my driveway to my front door without any harassment." "When Mike walked in," Savarino recalled, "he looked right at me. He always calls me Debbie K. Always. He looked me right in the eyes and said, 'Debbie K., I took a hard one today.' Tears welled up in my eyes and I said, 'Yes you did. Yes,you did.' And this man, this big, burly, bearded hunter man, was hugging me in his kitchen and was crying. It was awful." "In a way, it turned into something like an Irish wake," Mike said. "The party went on until about midnight. Finally the media was gone, the house was empty, and it was just me, Sue, and our oldest daughter, Janet. I wished Maggie could have been with me, too, but out of concern for her safety, we had sent her to be with her grandmother in Illinois. What a da y." l Reflective Journals Excerpt from King's College Online Writing Site The Reflective Journal is an assessment of your understanding of assigned readings, course lectures, and videos. It is also a means in which you demonstrate how you will apply your readings and observations in your day to day to life. Journals or reflective writing assignments are designed to help recognize and clarify t..