The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football by Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian Page B
Authors: Jeff Benedict, Armen Keteyian
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like I was being blamed for all of this. But I had a close relationship with the coaches and the staff. I didn’t want to get them in trouble.”
At the outset, Thompson showed Earps the picture that Andy Staples had taken during the recruiting visit to Byrnes High. “Is that you in this picture?” Thompson asked.
“Yes, it is,” Earps said.
Then Thompson showed Earps another picture. This one appeared to depict Lane Kiffin at a party in Knoxville. He was standing next to a platinum blond woman who appeared to be in her early twenties.
“Can you tell me where this photo was taken?” Thompson said.
“Ah, that’s not me,” Earps said.
Thompson then asked Earps a series of questions pertaining to the trip she and Johnson took to Byrnes High. Earps told her the same thing she had told Bean: they went because they were encouraged to go by the coaches. The girls also admitted that they had received gas money from Coach Reaves.
Earps summed up what she told the NCAA. “The only inappropriate thing we did was lead on seventeen- and eighteen-year-old guys just to getthem to come to the school,” she said. “We are not the only ones who do that. That goes on with hostesses at lots of schools. And no one tells us to do that. We just did it.”
Earps and Johnson never said anything to implicate Kiffin or his staff. At the same time, the NCAA never asked them about the money Kiffin had given Earps when Bryce Brown came to campus on an unofficial visit. Nor were there questions about the money that Kiffin’s staff had given hostesses to put on parties for recruits. The NCAA simply didn’t know about those things. Bean had instructed his clients to answer truthfully whatever was asked while refraining from offering information that went beyond the scope of the questions.
“I think that one of the systemic problems is that the NCAA and the enforcement staff doesn’t have the resources or the people to do the enforcement side,” Bean said. “They couldn’t investigate this stuff.”
Months after interviewing Earps and Johnson, the NCAA determined that the Tennessee football program committed secondary violations consisting of impermissible phone calls to recruits by coaches and inappropriate contact with recruits by more than one member of Orange Pride. In its Public Infractions Report on the University of Tennessee issued on November 16, 2012, the NCAA said, “The pattern of recruiting violations committed by the former football staff during its short tenure at the institution was, as stated in Infractions Report No. 342, troubling to the committee.” The penalty was a reduction in phone calls to recruits and a ban on recruiting at one high school (Byrnes) for nine months.
Lacey Earps never got her job back at Tennessee. After graduating with a degree in business, she left the state and took a job in the insurance industry. She remained loyal to the university and Orange Pride. She just wished the university had contacted her at some point to say it didn’t blame her for what happened on Lane Kiffin’s watch. “I gave everything I had to the football program and the institution,” she said.
Dahra Johnson also left Knoxville after graduating and entered the insurance industry. She also remained loyal to her alma mater and never spoke publicly about her experience.
After her sophomore year, Charlotte Henry transferred to the University of Memphis, where she earned a degree in journalism and public relations. She married, and she and her husband had a baby girl. Henry worked as a development coordinator for the mid-South chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“This may sound so silly,” she said, “but my experience with the Orange Pride really altered the way I thought of the university. And it altered it in a bad way. People there were crazy about sports. The reputation that Tennessee built was to bleed orange through and through. Integrity. Tradition. So when you get there and you’re in it, the
At the outset, Thompson showed Earps the picture that Andy Staples had taken during the recruiting visit to Byrnes High. “Is that you in this picture?” Thompson asked.
“Yes, it is,” Earps said.
Then Thompson showed Earps another picture. This one appeared to depict Lane Kiffin at a party in Knoxville. He was standing next to a platinum blond woman who appeared to be in her early twenties.
“Can you tell me where this photo was taken?” Thompson said.
“Ah, that’s not me,” Earps said.
Thompson then asked Earps a series of questions pertaining to the trip she and Johnson took to Byrnes High. Earps told her the same thing she had told Bean: they went because they were encouraged to go by the coaches. The girls also admitted that they had received gas money from Coach Reaves.
Earps summed up what she told the NCAA. “The only inappropriate thing we did was lead on seventeen- and eighteen-year-old guys just to getthem to come to the school,” she said. “We are not the only ones who do that. That goes on with hostesses at lots of schools. And no one tells us to do that. We just did it.”
Earps and Johnson never said anything to implicate Kiffin or his staff. At the same time, the NCAA never asked them about the money Kiffin had given Earps when Bryce Brown came to campus on an unofficial visit. Nor were there questions about the money that Kiffin’s staff had given hostesses to put on parties for recruits. The NCAA simply didn’t know about those things. Bean had instructed his clients to answer truthfully whatever was asked while refraining from offering information that went beyond the scope of the questions.
“I think that one of the systemic problems is that the NCAA and the enforcement staff doesn’t have the resources or the people to do the enforcement side,” Bean said. “They couldn’t investigate this stuff.”
Months after interviewing Earps and Johnson, the NCAA determined that the Tennessee football program committed secondary violations consisting of impermissible phone calls to recruits by coaches and inappropriate contact with recruits by more than one member of Orange Pride. In its Public Infractions Report on the University of Tennessee issued on November 16, 2012, the NCAA said, “The pattern of recruiting violations committed by the former football staff during its short tenure at the institution was, as stated in Infractions Report No. 342, troubling to the committee.” The penalty was a reduction in phone calls to recruits and a ban on recruiting at one high school (Byrnes) for nine months.
Lacey Earps never got her job back at Tennessee. After graduating with a degree in business, she left the state and took a job in the insurance industry. She remained loyal to the university and Orange Pride. She just wished the university had contacted her at some point to say it didn’t blame her for what happened on Lane Kiffin’s watch. “I gave everything I had to the football program and the institution,” she said.
Dahra Johnson also left Knoxville after graduating and entered the insurance industry. She also remained loyal to her alma mater and never spoke publicly about her experience.
After her sophomore year, Charlotte Henry transferred to the University of Memphis, where she earned a degree in journalism and public relations. She married, and she and her husband had a baby girl. Henry worked as a development coordinator for the mid-South chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“This may sound so silly,” she said, “but my experience with the Orange Pride really altered the way I thought of the university. And it altered it in a bad way. People there were crazy about sports. The reputation that Tennessee built was to bleed orange through and through. Integrity. Tradition. So when you get there and you’re in it, the
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