As I've stated in another thread, I'm suspending judgement until all the facts are known. As UVA fans should know, a poorly sourced article can do a world of hurt to a university and its fan base. This story got started from a student newspaper, and was, in fact, very poorly sourced, IMHO, so, forgive me if not rushing to judgement based upon what a college reporter claims.
With that said, I've been perusing Duke fan boards, and almost without exception, they are saying that current Duke students had been hearing rumors about this for months, and were just waiting for the story to be uncovered. I'm friends with more than a few Duke alums (when I went to UVA law school, half the cars in the law school parking lot had duke license plates) and they're telling me they've heard the same rumors.
I'm going to continue to reserve judgement, because that's the responsible thing to do. But there is WAY more than a whiff of smoke here. What started as a student paper publication has been picked up by all the major players. Here is the early NYT take:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/04/sports/ncaabasketball/duke-reacts-to-report-on-handling-of-sexual-assault-allegations.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&s&_r=0
One thing I'm absolutely sure of. Once ESPN, Bleacherreport, foxsports, the new york times, etc. start writing about the story, they are damn sure going to pay a team of investigators to uncover the dirt. Not to mention the Durham police department will face tremendous public pressure to investigate. The truth will almost certainly come out. Duke needs to get an entire PR team on standby.
Best case scenario for Duke? Sulaimon is cleared of any wrongdoing by everyone. Duke acted responsibly by not "preemptively suspending" based upon campus gossip. Worst case? This could turn really, really, really ugly for Duke in a hurry. We've already had one "legendary" coach taken down based upon a coverup of rape. Could we distinguish the cases, based upon the fact that Paterno participated (you can all judge for yourselves how "active" his participation was in the coverup) in a cover up of rape of CHILDREN? Sure. But the media constantly wants to expand the "threshold" on "career ending offenses." If the allegations in the article are true (which honestly, just my opinion, I think will likely be the outcome), Coach K waited 10 months before he acted. It would not be hard to convince me that one or more of the major media outlets sinks their teeth into this story and the reporters will try to "make their bones" by bringing down Coach K.
If Coach K was aware of credible evidence of rapes and ignored it (or worse, covered it up), I'll be first in line to fry him. He should be banned for life. But given the ordeal that Rolling Stone JUST put us through, I'd humbly suggest to everyone we let the facts be discovered before we rush to judgment. The truth will come out, one way or another.
