What are they saying happened?
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The lawsuit was filed by a Lakeland woman who worked as an athletic trainer at the University of Tennessee when Manning played there.
The lawsuit stems mostly from cases that occurred between 2013 and 2015, but it also references incidents involving Tennessee student-athletes dating to 1995 when Manning was the star quarterback there. While King’s story certainly sheds more light on the allegations against Manning from “96, it also brings about the idea of a cover-up and a smear campaign by the University of Tennessee and the Manning family, as King states that he acquired documents that could have exposed Manning as a ‘scumbag” had their been social media such as Facebook and Twitter back in 1996.
The lawsuit says, “in 1996, (then) Jamie Whited, the first female associate trainer in UT’s history, reported an incident to the Sexual Assault Crisis Center in Knoxville alleging UT football player Peyton Manning had, in brief, “sat on her face” while she was assessing the extent of an injury”.
Manning has denied the allegations and said he was “mooning” a fellow athlete, Malcolm Saxon.
Manning wrote about the sexual assault allegations in his book, “A Father, His Sons and a Football Legacy”, in 2001. Her suit said the book portrayed her as “an overly sensitive, predatory woman looking for incidents to bolster a lawsuit against her employer”.
Polian continued: “First of all, Peyton Manning has absolutely nothing, zero to do with the Title IX investigation or alleged violations at Tennessee”.
A prominent women’s group has its sights set on Peyton Manning. If Peyton Manning goes down, then so does ESPN and the National Football League for putting him on every commercial on a given Sunday afternoon in the fall and making him out to be some type of hero. It was out there, yet was hardly considered a blemish on Manning’s otherwise spotless public image (mostly before those HGH allegations emerged).
Why is this happening now?
The Super Bowl night confetti was still falling over Peyton Manning and his Denver Bronco teammates last week when a friend sent me a link to “Peyton Manning’s Forgotten Sex Scandal – The Daily Beast”, along with her own commentary of “I hadn’t seen this before – yuck”. Manning is white; Newton is black.
Something motivated Manning, however, to give his explanation of the event in the book, to write that the trainer had “a vulgar mouth,” among other unflattering characterizations. “It isn’t about blasting Peyton, but showing how if Cam did what he did, he’d be blasted for it non-stop”. But the rumor that ESPN anchors initially were told not to report on the Manning story was enough for others to seek answers and ultimately offer conflicting reports.
In court documents (via USA Today), Naughright says Manning used his “gluteus maximus, the rectum, the testicles and the area in between the testicles”. In fact, he has reaped tens of millions of dollars in endorsement deals based on a fraudulent mystique he’s cultivated as a good guy, an upstanding citizen, the ideal professional athlete.
Roy said Manning’s so-called squeaky clean image could be in jeopardy.
The lawsuit is about the university’s systemic problems in handling sexual assaults, with mention of the Manning complaint “simply a backdrop to the institutional issues”, attorney David Randolph Smith, who represents the five accusers, told CNN on Wednesday. Active NFL players are prohibited from pitching alcohol, so it was widely interpreted that Manning is planning to retire.
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The professor said he believes Manning will overcome this if there is no major evidence of wrongdoing.
