Steve Davis: Peyton Manning Shouldn’t Get A Pass

The suit cited almost a dozen instances dating back to the mid-1990s of former student athletes accused of sexual assault, including star quarterback Manning who won his second Super Bowl title earlier this month, with the Denver Broncos.

The University of Tennessee “deliberately created [and creates] a hostile discriminatory sexual environment for female students” and “acted with deliberate indifference in response to incidents of sexual assault”.

While the previously reported incident between Manning and Naughright took place 20 years ago, it has been referenced in a current federal lawsuit levied against the University of Tennessee.

One paragraph in the 64-page document includes a sexual harassment complaint made by Naughright in 1996 involving an incident that occurred in a training room while she was treating Manning.

The complaint states Manning committed a lewd act upon Naughright as she was examining for a possible stress fracture in his lower leg. Following the alleged incident, trainer Mike Rollo, Naughright’s supervisor, concocted a story that Manning was mooning a teammate at a time when the female trainer was in proximity. Although they never mentioned Naughright by name, the Mannings stated enough details and comments – including Peyton saying she “had a vulgar mouth” and Archie saying she slept with black athletes – for Naughright to file a defamation lawsuit against the Mannings in 2003. But then, New York Daily News columnist Shaun King obtained a copy of the Naughright lawsuit, dated October 2003. On top of working as the Director of Health and Wellness for the men’s athletic program, she was also a trainer for the men’s football team while Peyton Manning was a quarterback for the Volunteers. That’s the version that made so many fresh waves on social media over the weekend, and even though Manning’s equally significant version of facts presented to the court was not included, the waves are growing still. After she said no, she looked up to find Manning had lowered his trousers and put his privates in her face. In his book, Manning admitted that the incident was “crude maybe, but harmless”.

Naughright then filed for a defamation suit against Archie and Peyton Manning, the book’s ghost writer, as well as publisher Harper Collins. The Super Bowl-winning quarterback has been named in a new sexual harassment lawsuit against the University of Tennessee, his alma mater. “All I can tell you is everything we heard from people at the University of Tennessee was absolutely glowing”.

But there’s no way Manning now could make a retirement announcement without being bombarded with questions about his days at Tennessee and his actions toward Jamie Naughright, an athletic trainer with a doctoral degree.

Now Manning is staring at a dead arm, retirement and his name in a lawsuit claiming vile behavior.

Manning, who can be seen on television pitching everything from Papa John’s Pizza to Nationwide Insurance, ranked number 32 on the Forbes 2015 list of highest paid athletes, making almost as much in endorsements ($12 million) as salary ($15 million).

The Peyton Manning story was supposed to be the ideal one.

Additionally, Al-Jazeera reported in December that Manning was supplied with human growth hormone, a performance-enhancing drug illegal in the National Football League, by an anti-aging clinic in Indianapolis.

Jamie Naughright was raised in Hackettstown, New Jersey where father, James, was the owner and butcher of a Long Valley general store and chief of the Long Valley Fire Department for 3 out of the 43 years he was part of it.