A 1996 sexual assault allegation against Peyton Manning by a female trainer at the University of Tennessee that has recently returned to the news has prompted speculation about an earlier incident — which Manning’s lawyers have worked to keep out of the public eye — that may have initiated the iconic quarterback’s hostility toward the trainer.
A review of court records connected with a lengthy legal dispute between Manning and former Tennessee trainer Jamie Naughright shows a possible explanation for the acrimony: She may have accused him of cheating in a class.
The 1996 incident — which Manning called a mooning and the former trainer called a sexual assault — never resulted in a criminal charge, but it gained renewed attention this month, when it was referenced in a federal lawsuit filed against Tennessee alleging a “hostile sexual environment” in the school’s athletic department toward women. Then, on Feb. 13, the New York Daily News published a story based on a court document that details Naughright’s side of a years-long saga between her and Manning.
At the core of the dispute is what happened inside a Tennessee athletic training room on Feb. 29, 1996, when the 27-year-old trainer examined the foot of the 19-year-old star quarterback. Naughright’s version: Manning pulled down his shorts and placed his naked buttocks and genitals on her face. Manning’s version: He mooned a classmate in Naughright’s presence.
[Peyton Manning and the sexual assault story that won’t go away]
In a 2000 book entitled “Manning,” co-written by Peyton, his father Archie Manning and the writer John Underwood, the Mannings revisited the incident and described Naughright as “vulgar-mouthed.” After the book came out, Naughright sued the Mannings, Underwood and the publisher for defamation.
The court document the Daily News released last weekend came from this defamation case. The document describes Naughright’s version of the 1996 incident, and then her depiction of an ensuing cover-up orchestrated by Tennessee athletics officials — some of whom had sexually harassed her, she said. The court document calls the 1996 encounter “The Second Manning Incident.”
The first, Naughright’s lawyers wrote, happened in the fall of 1994, and is detailed in a sealed section that follows the heading “Peyton Manning’s Motive & Malice.”
“In the fall of 1994, an incident occurred involving Peyton Manning which will not only explain the genesis for Peyton Manning’s dislike for Dr. Naughright, but will be relevant to understanding the 1996 incident,” Naughright’s lawyers wrote. The next three-and-a-half pages are blank.
Manning’s lawyers asked for (continue reading)