Duke close to heart, Pressler re-emerges far from spotlight
Rick Maese, Baltimore Sun
Article was published February 25, 2007 (Direct Link)
The Duke men's lacrosse team returned to the field yesterday with a triumphant 17-11 victory over Dartmouth. A cool sun was shining on Durham, N.C., and 6,485 fans showed up, nearly setting a school record.
At the same time, nearly 700 miles up the coast, 610 fans braved near-freezing temperatures to watch Bryant University fall, 6-5, to visiting Adelphi.
I wouldn't say it's fitting, but the juxtaposition certainly is striking. Yep, Mike Pressler, the former Duke coach who did nothing wrong, is back coaching again. But, no, it's not the same.
"There's moving on and there's moving forward. ... Everybody's moving forward, but nobody's moving on," Pressler said one day before his debut as Bryant coach. "Nobody's moving on until those three players and that episode is over. Then we all can move on. We're doing our part up here in Smithfield, Rhode Island. They're doing their part down in Durham."
Yesterday was the day he'd been looking forward to, when the focus was back on the field. This is a guy who'd coach from under a rock if he thought his players could hear him. He didn't want the attention when his teams were doing well, and he didn't deserve the attention when Duke lacrosse became the three-month topic du jour on cable news networks' sordid menu.
"I hate doing this," he said of addressing cameras and recorders. He spoke at a news conference Friday, the first time he had talked at length with a group of reporters since that exotic dancer alleged she was raped 11 months ago.
Yet he knows it's part of the job, and he is thankful to have a job again. "Nine to 12 months ago there's no way I thought I'd be sitting here doing this again," he said. "There was a time during the summer where I thought my career was over."
Those words roll off his tongue, but they should sting our ears. This is a controversy that has featured a carousel of victims. For months, we woke up unsure who was most deserving of our sympathy that day: An angry dancer? A segregated community? Perhaps a university pilloried by kneejerk media? Or what about those three lacrosse players who attended a party with the dancer? Or should we weep for a justice system that was manipulated by a sloppy case?
How did we forget about Mike Pressler, the coach who handed his resignation to eager Duke administrators last April? Remind me again what he did wrong. Pressler had nothing to do with the night in question. He only led his team to 10 NCAA tournaments in 16 years. Reached the championship game. Was National Coach of the Year in 2005. And, most impressively, graduated 100 percent of his players during his tenure.
While charges in the case are still pending, Pressler was unfairly stigmatized, blackballed out of high-end coaching jobs. He said he had employment discussions with three universities but never received an offer. Must've been his resume, right?
In August, he finally accepted a job coaching at Bryant University, a 4,000-student Division II school that didn't have a lacrosse program until 2000.
"I take great offense when people say to me, often, 'Coach, in a couple of years this will be over. The Duke episode will be behind us, and you'll be right back on top at a Division I program, competing at that level again,'" Pressler said. "I take offense to that. If you're really in this profession of coaching, it's never been about the limelight.
"It's about the players, the journey, the excitement of seeing guys reach their potential," he said.
That sounds a bit refreshing, right? Because the media flock to the coaches and athletes (and yes, Carolina prosecutors) who smile on cue for a camera, we don't fully appreciate the achievements of the very best, the extremely talented and the most deserving.
Pressler isn't looking for attention, and he doesn't want our sympathy. He seems content at his new school, happy to again have bosses who actually have his back. The coach refuses to talk about how the Duke administration treated him, and he won't discuss details of the Duke case. But he rightly feels a small sense of vindication.
In case your memory doesn't stretch back to a time when Anna Nicole Smith still lived and astronauts in diapers didn't make cross-country treks, you might recall the brief TV news reports that announced that rape charges were dropped against the three Duke players. Charges of sexual offense and kidnapping remain, but as prosecutor Michael Nifong stepped down to answer ethical charges, it sure feels like that the accuser's tale has unwound.
"There's a lot of emotions you have to work your way through," he said. "We had five or six months to think about a lot of things. When you're home alone with your family, walking six or seven miles around the block, just thinking about what's going to be next, I just think one of the best things we did was not comment publicly. When the world was taking shots at us, we refused to go to that level. We said the truth is on our side. We're going to stay the course ... and hopefully come out of it with the world believing what we believe."
