Friday, May 04, 2007

Alleva: It’s not about the truth anymore


The News & Observer's Jim Nesbitt previews former Duke University Lacrosse coach Mike Pressler's book, “It's Not About the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case and the Lives It Shattered,” in today's paper:

In an upcoming book about the Duke lacrosse rape scandal, former coach Mike Pressler accuses university officials of caving to pressure from intense media scrutiny and protesters both within and outside of the school.

Pressler says university officials initially promised to stand by his team following the party where Crystal Gail Mangum said she was gang raped in March 2006. Instead, Pressler said, he was forced to resign and university President Richard Brodhead suspended the season.

Those steps on April 5, 2006, helped harden public opinion that Mangum’s rape allegations were true almost a year before Attorney General Roy Cooper dismissed sex offense charges against three players, declared them innocent and described the escort service dancer as an unreliable witness.

In one passage, Pressler, now the head lacrosse coach at Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I., also rues the damage to his own reputation after 16 years as Duke’s coach: ‘“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.”’

Entitled “It’s Not About the Truth: The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered,” the book marks Pressler’s first extensive comments about the scandal and offers his account of the meetings between parents, team members and university officials that took place before his resignation. It is one of two books on the Duke lacrosse case that will go on sale June 12, with a third scheduled for release in September.

Written by Don Yaeger, the book is comprehensive overview of the case, quoting dozens of key characters in the real-life drama. It is not a first-person account by the former Duke lacrosse coach, who gets a partial credit under Yaeger’s name on the cover: “with Mike Pressler.”

In another passage, Pressler describes an early-morning meeting with Duke Athletic Director Joe Alleva, who tells the coach the team’s season will be canceled.

“ ‘...Joe, you told the players and the parents you believed their story, you believed in them, you believed that they were telling the truth.’ “Alleva look 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.”

9 comments:

Alia said...

Very early on reporting did reveal that Pressler was forced to resign. Within minutes afterwards, the MSM began their skewing - insinuating by nuanced words that Mr. Pressler "chose" to resign. This was done by the body of Hoax Enablers to present the image that Mr. Pressler "believed" his own players were "probably" guilty and that CGM was "probably" telling the truth.

Most Foul!

Anonymous said...

John Burness' quote at the end of the preview is the saddest, most laughable statement lacking of any truth I think anyone could actually come up with after all of these months: that Duke did not succumb to pressure from outside or within.

Anonymous said...

Carolyn says:

Burness says Duke was waiting for the truth to come out. But how do you WAIT for April 2007 when in April 2006 you kick Reade, Dave and Collin off the Duke campus, cancel their lacrosse season and fire their coach?

That's not waiting. That's lynching.

Anonymous said...

---------
Carolyn says:

Burness says Duke was waiting for the truth to come out. But how do you WAIT for April 2007 when in April 2006 you kick Reade, Dave and Collin off the Duke campus, cancel their lacrosse season and fire their coach?

That's not waiting. That's lynching.
--------------

Didn't I read an ad in the Chronicle once that said, "Thank you for not waiting?" LMFAO
cf

Anonymous said...

The fact that the feckless stumblebum and his witless minions are still in place is dispicable and disgusting. Until the bot (assuming they have not been brain washed by Steel) gets rid of these nut cases and their leader, I have washed my hands of the place.

Trinity60

Anonymous said...

Alleva, remember, was speaking for Brodhead, so we now have the president of Duke endorsing such a statement. In other words, Duke University, according to Richard Brodhead, does not care about truth.

However, the university went to great lengths to promote a lie.

Anonymous said...

It is not a lynching. please do not devalue that word. A lynching is when you are a poor black man who is accused of a crime and taken from the sherriff by a crowd of white supremacists and then hung without a trial and probably castrated and burned before you are hung up. Then your tormentors give your toes and fingers out as keepsakes and take a picture with the women and children who ar picnicing and watching. That is what a real lynching was like; if you do not believe it go to the civil rights museum, you will see the pictures of lynching, complete with smiling whites posing for the camera. They even made postcards of particularly spectacular lunchings. The duke players were not lynched. They were not in jail, they were not threatened by crowds of unrestrained people and they had the best legal representation that money could buy.

Mandelbrot's Chaos said...

Well, 5:40, they weren't in jail, that's for sure, but not for lack of trying on the part of a rogue prosecutor and a host of enablers. However, they were threatened by crowds of unrestrained people. While I agree that this wasn't a lynching in the classic sense of the word, it was that same mindset that led to their railroading.

Anonymous said...

You are a liar. One person saying a bad comment does not a lynch mobe make. You are exaggerating this whole thing. The crowds in Durham at the courthouse were polite and quiet. I know I was there and it was not anything like an unrestrained crowd. These guys had it easy. They were out of jail in time for morning class and spent some of their time off in Europe. This is as far from a real lynching as you can get.