The Underside of the NFL-Draft Hacking Scandal – The New Yorker 
Laremy Tunsil with N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell after Tunsil was picked thirteenth over all, by the Miami Dolphins, during the first round of the 2016 N.F.L. Draft, on Thursday. Credit Photograph by Jon Durr / Getty
On Thursday night, a twenty-one-year-old named Laremy Tunsil was expected to be the first offensive lineman selected at the annual N.F.L. rookie draft, in New York. Tunsil had been a star at the University of Mississippi and, according to his scouting profile at NFL.com, he was “easily [the] cleanest offensive lineman in the 2016 draft and might be the cleanest prospect period.” In sum, the profile states, “his feet, technique and instincts could make him an all-pro and one of the top pass protectors in the NFL.” Many analysts had projected him as a sure-fire top-five over-all pick. At the draft, which these days has an actual red carpet, like the Oscars, Tunsil arrived wearing a nicely cut blazer, a print bow tie, and a pair of sparkly loafers, looking at ease and very much like the multimillion-dollar football player he was about to become. His mother, beaming, walked the carpet next to him.
Then, just minutes before teams were scheduled to start choosing players, Tunsil’s Twitter account posted a video showing Tunsil, at an unknown date, taking a hit from a bong inserted into a gas mask. It was, to put it mildly, a startling image, and though the post was quickly taken down, copies of the video spread quickly online. Tunsil’s agent promptly claimed that his client’s account had been hacked, something we’ve come to treat dubiously; it’s the default line that somebody uses after he has posted something dumb on the Internet. But this time it had to be true: Why would a top draft prospect release such a thing into the world just moments before teams were deciding whether they wanted to pay him millions of dollars? Tunsil reëstablished his account to issue an apology, saying that he had been hacked but acknowledging that the video was real. It was too late. Picks came and went without Tunsil’s name being called, until, finally, and, it felt, mercifully, the Miami Dolphins selected him with the thirteenth pick in the first round.
By falling to the Dolphins, Tunsil may have lost as much as seven million dollars from his first contract in the league. It was a jarring moment—a crime perpetrated by someone apparently intent on sabotaging his draft night, and who had actually succeeded. But the worst of it seemed to be over: Tunsil would still be playing in the pros, and would still be paid millions of dollars to do it.
But it didn’t end there. Moments after Tunsil was picked, he was hacked again. This time it was his Instagram feed, which posted screen shots from text conversations with time stamps from February and April of 2015. In the first conversation, which appeared to be between Tunsil and a football administrator at Ole Miss named John Miller, a user by the name of Laremy Tunsil writes, “Coach I need help paying my rent.” A user named John Miller responds, “See Barney next week,” perhaps referring to another athletic administrator at the school, Barney Farrar. (Farrar has denied giving money to Tunsil.) In another exchange between users named Laremy Tunsil and John Miller, Tunsil writes that he needs three hundred and five dollars to help his mother pay her utility bills. Miller responds by saying, “I thought we all agreed on an amt- that number keeps changing” and “someone needs to explain exact cost- I have no way of handing surprise amounts.” At a press conference held moments after the hack, Tunsil was asked if there had been an “exchange between you and your coach, of money,” to which he responded, “I’d have to say yeah.” Then, in what might have been the oddest moment in a night already full of them, a woman rushed in and cut the press conference short, hurrying Tunsil away and into a closed room.
The N.F.L. draft is broadcast live on television for hours, and excitement, such as it is, lags between the announcement of each pick. After the hacks, TV analysts had plenty of time to sort through a variety of facile angles on the situation, nicely summed up and debunked in the Daily News. Topics discussed on air included the scourge of marijuana use among football players; the foolishness of young athletes using social media; and the importance that N.F.L. teams, all evidence and common sense to the contrary, supposedly place on issues of personal character when assembling their rosters. The specter of Johnny Manziel—a former top pick now out of the game and struggling with addiction and legal troubles—hung over the discussion of Tunsil, and the takeaway from the analysts’ banter was that the N.F.L. needed to reconsider how it selects its labor force. Roger Goodell, the league’s commissioner, later reflected on the first-known example of real-time sports cybercrime by saying, “I think it’s what makes the draft so exciting.”
To a certain extent, the general fixation on the video of Tunsil wearing a gas-mask bong can be forgiven. It was a quite a thing, and certainly will be what comes to mind whenever anyone remembers the events of this draft. But if there was an important revelation lurking in the events of Thursday night, it had less to do with Tunsil than with the university for which he used to play. The Ole Miss football program was, before Thursday night, already under investigation by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, in part for violations specifically involving Tunsil. In 2015, Tunsil was judged to have received impermissible financial benefits as a student, and, as punishment, was forced to sit out the first seven games of the season. The things that Tunsil was said to have received were pretty paltry: the use of loaner cars, an interest-free loan of four thousand dollars, an airplane ticket. This isn’t exactly the stuff of “Blue Chips,” nor is it the kind of salacious material that makes for eye-catching headlines, like the allegations by former Louisville basketball recruits that they were treated to parties with strippers and prostitutes who were paid to have sex with them. Instead, the allegations against Tunsil, like Thursday’s alleged text messages, were reminders of the basic things that college athletes need—transportation, loans to pay the bills—and that the system in which they play, despite some minor reforms, continues to prevent them from receiving fair amounts of support over the table.
What’s more troubling than the specific allegations against Ole Miss, however, is the way that the university, the N.C.A.A., the media, and fans chose to portray them. Following his suspension, Tunsil’s acceptance of favors was framed as a poor decision by a young man, made entirely on his own, and in violation of the rules of amateurism that his university said it fully endorses. In a statement released at the time, Tunsil was contrite, writing, “I take full responsibility for the mistakes I made and want to thank everyone for their continued support. I want to apologize to my teammates, coaches and the entire Ole Miss family for how my choices affected our program.” His coach, Hugh Freeze, announced that he stood by his player, and painted the whole affair as a teachable moment: “I am confident that Laremy will grow from this experience and continue to be a positive member of the University and our football team.”
Going into the draft, Tunsil’s suspension was cited as a potential “character issue”—a phrase that rolls off analysts’ tongues with the same ease as forty-yard-dash times. Teams were reportedly weighing his suspension against his immense talent when deciding whether to select him. Also being considered was the fact that, in June, 2015, Tunsil had been briefly charged with domestic assault, following a physical altercation with his stepfather. After the incident, Tunsil claimed that he was protecting his mother, and the charges were quickly dropped. Tunsil’s stepfather is now pursuing a civil case against him, and many people were quick to speculate, lacking any evidence, that he might have been behind the hacking. (A lawyer for Tunsil’s stepfather denied that his client had participated in the hack, and Deadspin reported that the video of Tunsil had been shopped around to sports Web sites leading up to the draft.) And yet, before Thursday’s hacks, executives for various teams, which had done extensive background research, including speaking to Tunsil himself, were convinced that he was worth whatever risks his past might have suggested. The larger story circling him, a familiar narrative in situations involving college players with “character issues,” was that he had made mistakes and was the fortunate recipient of forgiveness from his coach, school, and now the teams angling to draft him.
Last year, Ole Miss administrators and coaches were able to place the blame on Tunsil and then tout their own generosity by saying that they had stuck with their student athlete and given him a second chance—a chance that led directly to his impending professional career. Tunsil’s coach, Freeze, was in New York for the draft, to celebrate the fact that his team had produced three first-round picks, including Tunsil. He may well have been thrilled for them, but surely he was also pleased with the chance to demonstrate, to all the high-schoolers in Mississippi and beyond, that Ole Miss was a place to play if you wanted a chance at the next level. Freeze has been credited with making Ole Miss relevant again in the hypercompetitive Southeastern Conference, largely on the strength of the recruiting class that he brought to the school in 2013, headlined by Tunsil. Tunsil grew up in Lake City, Florida, and Freeze lured him away from that state’s powerhouse schools. The unprecedented strength of that recruiting class at Ole Miss was what drew the attention of N.C.A.A. investigators—following a slew of mostly anonymous tips alleging that players had been improperly induced to sign with the team. This spring, Freeze, in an interview with Dennis Dodd, of CBS Sports, called the investigation a “four-year colonoscopy.” He also explained just what Tunsil and the other talented acquisitions had meant for the university. “The day after that 2013 class was signed, he contends, freshman applications shot through the roof,” Dodd wrote. “Property values for lots in his neighborhood, Freeze says, have doubled.” Freeze also recently signed a new contract with the school, guaranteed through 2019, which pays him a base salary of $4.7 million a year, with promised raises to follow.
The investigation remains open against Ole Miss. On Friday, responding to the madness of the night before, the school said that it would coöperate with any specific requests on the matter from investigators from the S.E.C. and the N.C.A.A. But Tunsil is gone now. Coach Freeze and his university remain and, rather than continuing to bestow forgiveness on wayward players, they may wind up having to ask for it themselves.
