Peyton Manning named in sexual lawsuit against the University of Tennessee

According to The Tennesseean, the lawsuit was filed by the women, unnamed, because the university created a culture that enabled sexual assault among student-athletes, especially football players.

Just one week after Peyton Manning triumphed in Super Bowl 50, the Denver Broncos quarterback’s reputation has been called into question due to his alleged involvement in a sexual assault during his time at the University of Tennessee.

The 1996 incident involving Manning and Dr. Jamie Naughright, a former associate trainer in the UT football program, is old news. Shocked, disgusted, and offended, Naughright pushed Manning away, removing her head out from under him (see pages 14-15).

The incident was not investigated by police, and Naughright’s lawsuit against Manning was settled a year later with the agreement that she leave the university.

Highlighted in a lawsuit against the University of Tennessee for fostering a “hostile sexual environment” is a sexual assault complaint against Peyton Manning.

“Whatever the decision is, I have real peace about it. I’m going to enjoy this Super Bowl victory and celebrate with my family and friends”, he said.

However, in a book written with his father and a ghostwriter in 2001 (still available on Amazon), Manning discussed the indicent, claiming that he did not expose himself directly to Naughright, and instead was trying to moon a nearby teammate as part of a prank, and also claims that the trainer had a “vulgar mouth.”

“And, she’d, she’d, been up in the dorm before, I mean hey, you know, they could have, you know, could have pulled off stuff on her too”.

Here’s the Manning paragraph in the first suit, filed last week.

Manning came to Tennessee in the fall of 1994 as a freshman and the incident took place in November 1994, per the court documents.

After the incident was reported, Naughright charges that Manning and head athletic trainer Mike Rollo combined forces to “hatch” a story that Manning was “mooning” another athlete, Malcolm Saxon, when he accidentally sat on her face. Late on Saturday, The Tennessean, published a story headlined, “UT sex assault lawsuit cites Peyton Manning”. First, Al Jazeera strongly implied during their report on December 27 that Human Growth Hormone mailed from an Indianapolis pharmaceutical institute to Manning’s wife Ashley was really meant for her husband.

Since a couple of recent news reports about Peyton Manning’s University of Tennessee locker room behavior, I’m thinking I better pick my heroes way more carefully.

Here we go again, 20 years after the fact in this case: An iconic quarterback, and another morality play about truth, justice and whose version of events to believe.

It’s important to remember in all of this that these are just allegations against Manning and nothing has been concretely proven yet. She claims the book casts her in a negative light and that Manning’s characterizations were false and led to her losing her job at Florida Southern College. Manning said at the time it was a prank intended for another athlete.