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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (334691)	4/22/2007 2:39:49 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574005

It's not about the truth BETSY'S PAGE Rick Reilly has a column at Sports Illustrated about Duke lacrosse coach Mike Pressler who was forced out because of the trumped up charges against his team. SI doesn't have the column up yet, but Liestoppers has this telling quote. "On April 5, Pressler says, Duke athletic director Joe Alleva called him in and said, "Mike, I've got to let you go." "But Joe," Pressler pleaded. "You stood up before my players and said you believe it never happened. The DNA is coming back any day. Wait for the truth." "It's not about the truth anymore," Pressler says Alleva told him. "Its about the faculty, the NAACP, and the special interest groups." "Its not about the truth anymore." Well, that was certainly true, wasn't it?" Has there ever been a less-impressive athletic director than Alleva? And he was just doing what university president Brodhead wanted. A scalp. And they got it with Mike Pressler. No wonder that Pressler has chosen this for the title of his forthcoming book about the Duke lacrosse scandal travesty. It was never about the truth whether it was Mike Nifong using the case to advance his political career or Duke officials caving to protest groups or some members of the Duke faculty and special interest groups trying to drum up a scandal that illustrated all their preconceived notions or the media searching for a subject to drum up ratings. As the Coleman report that the Duke president commissioned to look into the conduct of the lacrosse team laid forth clearly, while the members of the team did engage in behavior frowned upon by the authorities, the coach himself took steps to address those problems that were specifically brought to him. However, the administration actually did little to try to get Pressler to alter his team's behavior. Administrators responsible for the discipline of students were generally aware of the irresponsible conduct of lacrosse players associated with drinking. With the exception of the Office of Judicial Affairs, none of these administrators was especially alarmed by the conduct. Although some administrators claim that they communicated their concerns to Coach Pressler, there is no evidence that they adequately did so. The whole administration was to blame but they let Pressler be the fall guy. There is no question that the extensive disciplinary record of the lacrosse team came to the attention of administrators in the Fall of 2004. It is equally clear that, perhaps other than the Dean of Judicial Affairs, none of the administrators who knew about the record was alarmed about it or demanded that any extraordinary action be taken to address it. And, contrary to many reports in the press, the team itself The administration turned a blind eye to the drinking that was being done on campus. It was not a priority. I have been on campus on game weekends since the lacrosse scandal and walked behind security guards as they walked past outdoor parties of kids, most probably underage, were openly drinking there on a dorm quad on a Saturday afternoon. They all waved to the guard and he waved back. Clearly, there is some directive that has gone out to the security guards that they shouldn't bother to try to stop or card kids when they're publicly drinking on campus. And then the administrators all pretended concern about the reports that the lacrosse players were drinking and partying. Give me a break! That was going on among all sorts of groups before this story broke and it's still going on. Next to the three players, the person who was treated the worst in this whole story was the lacrosse coach. They forced his resignation because they felt they need to hand some sort of trophy to the protesters. The coach of the number two team in the country had to go work for a second tier program at Bryant University in Rhode Island. I wouldn't be surprised if some top tier school in lacrosse offers him a job soon. He's got a book coming out in June that must make the Duke administration quake even more in their timid little shoes. And then, after that they'll have to face the book that will probably take away whatever figleaf they've been using to pretend that they did the right thing when this scandal broke, the book by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson of the indispensable Durham in Wonderland blog, Until Proven Innocent, will come out in September. It will be a one-two punch that the administration will most definitely not enjoy. betsyspage.blogspot.com