“What should we do?” Dad asked.
“Get out in front of this. Right now, the press has very little to go on and will start digging. By this time tomorrow, we might have a full-blown crisis on our hands. I can’t stress enough how serious this is. If we let them set the narrative, David’s future might be in jeopardy.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
“David’s the ideal target for something like this, as far as the media is concerned. He’s a high-profile athlete who’s also a model and actor. This plays right into a scenario some in the media love to exploit. A rape allegation against him highlights gender/class/power/jock issues, in a small town where those issues may tend to be covered up. Combine that with someone spoon-feeding them information, and it’s the perfect story. They don’t even have to work to figure it out.
“This story writes itself, and the press has no interest in whether it’s true or not. What we have to do is make so much noise they’ll look like idiots if they don’t at least show some balance. Believe me, it makes a much better story to expose the All-American boy who has a secret dark side.
“I’m getting way ahead of myself, but if we play this right, it might be the best thing to happen to you. I just described the man that women will throw their panties at. It’s a hard balance to pull off, the good-slash-bad boy. It’s all too easy to slip too far to the bad-boy side, and then it becomes a liability,” Frank said.
Kendal waggled her eyebrows at me, which made me smile.
“Sorry, I got off track and time is limited, so I’ll get to the point,” Frank said. “When we have a new agent, we teach them about two cases that directly pertain to what you’re going through. The first is the University of Colorado rape story. This happened back in 2001. Two women claimed to have been gang-raped by football players and recruits at a party. In that instance, the media was given information by a PR firm that had been hired by the two women. This caused the case to explode in the eyes of the public, which ultimately had the university settle for nearly three million dollars.
“When the dust finally settled, the university was only found to have done one thing wrong: an assistant coach had made a phone call to the escort service on a university-supplied cell phone. Nevertheless, because of the work of the PR firm, those facts never came out. In the end, what sunk the university was a comment the head coach made. If you listened to the full comment, it made perfect sense and was well-thought-out. The problem was the media looks for sound bites. The sound bite, out of context, sunk them. In the end, the football coach lost his job. The Colorado legislature got involved, and the university president resigned. As a side note, the coach never found a job after that, and all because a sound bite was twisted to fit the narrative the PR firm had pushed,” Frank said.
“Did anyone get convicted of rape?” Dad asked.
“You know, I don’t know. The point I make to my new agents is that if we can control the story, we can satisfy our client’s needs. In this case, the two women, who were also students at the university, earned a nearly three million dollar payday,” Frank said.
“But I don’t want to make any money off of anyone,” I said.
“This isn’t about you making money right now. If we find the state’s attorney leaked the information about your questioning and the nature of it, we might go after him, but that’s the small picture. I would think you’d be more worried about your future income and visitation rights.”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to see my child?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
“If her father is as mad as I suspect he is, he would have no problem blocking access to the child. Pam may also use the baby as a bargaining chip as far as child support goes.”
I could see the wheels grinding in my mom’s mind. Cal would regret it if he tried to keep her away from her grandbaby. She wouldn’t give a damn what any court said.
I guess I wasn’t built to think in the terms Frank was laying out. I would never believe that Pam wouldn’t want me in our baby’s life. I also never imagined that she would accuse me of rape, though. I wondered if it was a Midwestern thing, where we thought the best of others. Pam was from California. I was afraid it was just that I was naïve, and this was the start of a painful life lesson.
Frank then reminded us of the Duke University lacrosse case. This one had racial undertones as the girl was black and the boys were privileged white jocks. The prosecutor had fed information to the press that caused a media storm. It turned out the girl had made false accusations. The case ended in the resignation and disbarment of the lead prosecutor.
The three players accused were suspended from the team. Shortly thereafter, their coach was forced to resign, and the athletic department canceled the rest of the season. Everything was made worse when many persons involved in or commenting on the case, including the District Attorney, suggested that the alleged rape was a hate crime.
Duke and the city of Durham eventually reached out-of-court settlements with the accused players. As an interesting side note, the girl who made the accusations stabbed and killed her boyfriend five years later.
We then created a game plan. Mom and Dad would find me a lawyer. Tom offered them office space if it turned out they needed it. I suggested they call Bev Mass, Cook County State’s Attorney, and Governor Higgins. Between the two of them, they’d know who to hire.
Frank and I would work on the media. Frank planned to call his contacts through IDC–Public Relations and I suggested we talk to Jeff Delahey, our local sports reporter. He had treated me fairly when the steroid scandal happened. I promised him I would be open if anything else ever happened.
Frank also called his office to start to investigate the different players in this little drama. I now saw why Frank had put the scandal clause in his contract. This was going to cost me a fortune.
◊◊◊
I called Coach Hope and told him what was going on. Something I learned from the stories Frank had told me was that the head coach might be fired in a situation like this. I didn’t want that to happen, and Frank agreed to help Coach Hope and the rest of the staff with the media. Coach gave me the day off to take care of what I needed to do. I promised to keep him in the loop.
This time we were in Jeff’s office for the interview. Someone in management for the newspaper joined him. As we sat down, my phone rang, and it was my mom.
“Sorry, I need to take this,” I said and got up.
“I’m about to do my interview with the paper,” I said.
“We hired a lawyer for you, a Ms. Dixon out of Chicago. Both the Governor and Bev had her on their short list.”
“Is she related to Senator Dixon?” I asked.
“She’s his daughter. She wants to talk to you and Frank before you do the interview.”
Mom gave me her number, and I went back into the meeting.
“I hate to do this, but my lawyer wants to talk to me before she lets you loose on me.”
“She must have read my hard-hitting articles about you. If you want, you can use the room to talk,” Jeff said, and he and his boss got up.
When we were alone, Frank asked for the number.
“I think I can put her mind at ease. She’s worried you’ll say something to implicate yourself,” Frank said and then smiled. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
I listened as Frank gave her his credentials and then outlined what I would say in the interview. He took some notes and then handed to phone to me.
“Hi, this is David,” I said.