Could more scandal be coming for Broncos’ Peyton Manning and will it stick?
Are there more Peyton Manning scandals soon to be exposed?
Shaun King, the New York Daily News writer who on Saturday posted a story that alleges Manning’s “squeaky-clean” image is built on lies, posted on Facebook on Sunday that he has more information on the Denver Broncos quarterback that will be published in the coming days.
“The story we released is part 1 of several parts. I chose to tell one very particular story first, but we have much more we will be releasing in the days ahead,” King wrote.
It’s unknown what those stories will contain, or, for that matter, if any scandal will stick to Manning for any length of time. None has so far.
In the Daily News’ story Saturday, court documents are posted detailing the sexual assault accusations against Manning while he was a student at the University of Tennessee and the attempts by both Manning and the Tennessee athletic department to manipulate the incident – worst, they tried to get the victim to pin it on an African-American student-athlete and also smeared the victim.
Manning broke the confidentiality agreement on the case by writing about it in a book in 2001, again smearing the victim; the woman, Dr. Jamie Naughright, filed a defamation lawsuit against Manning and the two settled out of court.
As detailed in a story published earlier this month on The Daily Beast, Manning spoke on the Tennessee incident again a couple of years later, and again Naughright took Manning to court.
For whatever reason, Robert Silverman’s story on The Daily Beast, titled “Peyton Manning’s Forgotten Sex Scandal” didn’t gain much traction. But as the Daily News’ story spread on social media on Saturday, there was, predictably, all manner of reaction. Some of the information in King’s story was new, or not well-known, such as school staff trying to convince Naughright to blame the assault on a different athlete, naming a specific African-American athlete they could pin it on. She refused.
The recent stories, coupled with Al Jazeera America’s report tying Manning to human-growth hormone usage (as well as his sending investigators to the home of Charlie Sly, the man secretly recorded in the Al Jazeera America report tying Manning and others to performance-enhancing drugs), plus records of how the Manning family, specifically Peyton and his father, Archie, have responded to the accusations, show a family that can be ruthless.
They also serve as a reminder that we don’t truly know athletes. That, increasingly, in an age when public figures can carefully craft their image through social media, traditional media and endorsements, what we think we know of men and women considered heroes for their achievements in sports is often times a mirage.
Call it the Bill Cosby Effect.
Many confuse Cosby, the man accused by dozens of women of drugging and raping them, with Heathcliff Huxtable, the beloved television character Cosby played. While it’s inconceivable that Heathcliff Huxtable would ever harm women, it’s entirely possible that Bill Cosby did.
In a similar way, Pitchman Peyton has tried to sell us everything from Papa John’s pizza to Buicks to Nationwide insurance to Mastercards to DirecTV service during his NFL career. He’s one of the most-recognized athletes in America because everyone has seen his self-deprecating ads and his “aw, shucks” demeanor in front of cameras.
But we have no real idea what Manning is like once the cameras are off and when his legacy is threatened.
These stories, and court documents, may give some idea. They don’t take away from what he’s done on the field as a quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos. They do show us a deeply flawed hero.
