Some of us have waited oh so long for a piece like this by Mark Patinkin!
http://www.providencejournal.com/writers/mark-patinkin/20140521-mark-patinkin-bryant-lacrosse-takes-a-chance-on-principle-and-tastes-victory.ece
Mark Patinkin: Bryant lacrosse takes a chance on
principle and tastes victory
May 21, 2014 05:55 AM
The Providence Journal / Bob Thayer
Mike Pressler, head coach of
lacrosse at Bryant University, with his players during a practice. A scandal
tested two university presidents.
17 13 +10 0 0 6 
By Mark Patinkin
Journal Columnist
It was the kind of Cinderella
victory that belongs in the pantheon of underdog moments.
The unranked Bryant lacrosse team
beat mighty number-two Syracuse in the nationals — but something was in play
that day that transcended sport.
The win was also a flash of
redemption after a shameful American lynching known as the Duke lacrosse
scandal. For at the helm of the Bryant team was the coach thrown to the wolves
in 2006 by Duke’s president — then given his only comeback offer by the
president of Bryant.
Coach Mike Pressler embraced that
offer, stepping down from Olympus to take on a no-name college team in
Smithfield, R.I., and eight years later, two weeks ago, for one triumphant
moment, he brought it to the peak of the lacrosse world.
But perhaps the real heart of this
story is how the scandal tested the character of two university presidents.
One was Richard Brodhead of Duke, considered
the Ivy of the south. The other was Ron Machtley of the emerging but still
regional Bryant University.
The behavior of Brodhead will
forever stand as a profile in cowardice.
By contrast, Machtley was the only
school leader in the nation to stand up for the falsely accused.
Pressler had spent 16 years building
Duke into the top-ranked team it continues to be today. But in March of 2006,
an exotic dancer was thrown out of an off-campus lacrosse party after an
argument and told police she’d been sexually assaulted. Despite the “victim’s”
questionable account, a district attorney running for reelection pounced on the
volatile case and charged three lacrosse players with rape.
The DA was eventually disbarred for
misconduct, and the charges dismissed. Today, the accuser is in prison for a
murder she committed afterward.
But at the time, the case was so
volatile that protesters demonstrated against the team. It left Brodhead with a
choice. Would he do the hard thing and stand by his students as innocent until
proven guilty? Or play to the angry crowd?
He chose the most pandering possible
course. He canceled the entire lacrosse season. Then he handed one more body to
the mob, forcing coach Pressler to resign.
The publicity left Pressler so
radioactive that even high schools wouldn’t return his calls.
Only one institution made him an
offer — Bryant.
Let it be said that President
Machtley was not acting on virtue alone. He wanted to take Bryant’s middling
Division-II lacrosse team to D-1 and saw a chance to get perhaps the best coach
in the country.
But it was still an enormous risk.
The North Carolina DA was out for blood. If he got rape convictions, any
president who touched Pressler would be tarnished. So none did.
But Machtley looked into the case,
talked to those involved and felt the team had been railroaded. So he took a
chance. He brought Mike Pressler from North Carolina to Rhode Island.
He did so knowing it would be a long
road for the program. Even with a top coach, Bryant didn’t have the reputation
to lure the best recruits. Building a new D-1 lacrosse team takes time.
Which brings up how one other man’s
character was tested. Pressler agreed to a five-year contract. By the time it
ended in 2011, his image was rehabilitated. He got offers from the most prestigious
lacrosse schools in the country.
Yet he couldn’t say “no” fast
enough. Machtley, he says, gave him his life back, and he will never forget
that. Mike Pressler is now in Year Eight at Bryant.
After the case against the Duke
players collapsed, President Brodhead admitted he got things wrong, but said
the facts were unclear at the time. It was a disingenuous apology. Pressler
remembers that as he was forced out, Duke’s athletic director told him, “It’s
not about the truth.” Indeed it wasn’t. It was about President Brodhead’s
cowardice.
In certain mythical stories, a
fearful king banishes a knight who returns years later to the castle gate at
the head of a great army. Bryant’s lacrosse team was on track to face Duke this
year in the national championships if both teams made it. Duke is still in it,
but Bryant fell to powerful Maryland in the Elite Eight round.
Yet in beating second-ranked
Syracuse two weeks ago, Pressler showed recruits everywhere that he now
captains a formidable force.
Bryant has risen.
Because of a coach who persevered.
And a president who risked for
principle.
While his counterpart at Duke bears
the shame of having sided with the mob.
On Twitter: @MarkPatinkin
No comments:
Post a Comment