Its Not About the Truth, Mike Pressler
Its Not About the Truth, Mike Pressler
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It's Not About the Truth
The Untold Story of the Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered

Author: Mike Pressler, Don Yaeger

Narrator: Dick Hill

Unabridged: 10 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/06/2007


Synopsis

Mike Pressler walked into the bottom-floor meeting room of the Murray Building and, as he had done hundreds of times over a sixteen-year career at Duke University, prepared to address his men's lacrosse team. Forty-six players sat in theater-style chairs, all eyes riveted forward.

It was 4:30 P.M. on Wednesday, April 5, 2006. The program's darkest hour had arrived in an unexpected and explosive announcement.

Pressler, a three-time ACC Coach of the Year, informed his team that its season was canceled and that he had "resigned," effective immediately. While his words reverberated off the walls, hysteria erupted. Players cried, confused over a course of events that had spun wildly out of control. What began as an off-campus team party with two hired strippers had accelerated into a rape investigation—one that exposed prosecutorial misconduct, shoddy police work, an administration's rush to judgment, and the media's disregard for the facts—dividing both a prestigious university and the city of Durham.

Wiping away tears, Pressler demonstrated the steely resolve that helped him win more than two hundred games. For the next thirty minutes, Pressler put his personal situation aside and encouraged his players to stick together. He also made a bold promise: "One day, we will get a chance to tell the world the truth. One day."

This is that day.

Pressler, who has not done an interview since the saga began, has handed his private diary from those three weeks to New York Times bestselling author Don Yaeger, exposing vivid details, including the day Pressler was fired, when the coach asked Athletic Director Joe Alleva why the school "wasn't willing to wait for the truth" to come out."It's not about the truth anymore," Alleva said to the coach in a signature moment that said it all. In addition to Pressler, Yaeger interviewed more than seventy-five key figures intimately involved in the case. The result is a tale that defies logic.

"It is tough to be one of fifty people who believed a story when fifty million people believed something else," Pressler said. "This wasn't about the truth to many of the others involved. My story is all about the truth."

About Mike Pressler

Mike Pressler was the head coach of the Duke University lacrosse team. Under his leadership, the team won three Atlantic Coast Conference championships and ten NCAA tournament berths, and it made an appearance in the 2005 Division I men's lacrosse championship game. He now coaches the lacrosse team at Bryant College in Rhode Island.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Donna on November 15, 2015

This is a terrific book. It is about the Duke University lacrosse team scandal, and it will make any reader stop and think about how quickly lives can change. This incident, and the resulting investigation and reaction, affected so many lives, not only those of the coach and players, but also those......more

Goodreads review by Paul Gaya Ochieng Simeon on February 11, 2021
Goodreads review by Donald on April 30, 2010

Anyone living in America during the time remembers this case. It was plastered all over the national news. As one who remembers but never followed this case, this book did a great job filling in the gaps and telling the complete story. It is a story worth reading. Given the fact that Pressler (the co......more

Goodreads review by Bri Martinez on May 25, 2016

I decided to pick up this book after watching ESPN's 30 for 30 documentary, Fantastic Lies, which provided a deeper look into the events surrounding the Duke Lacrosse case. As a Duke alumni, I realized that I knew very little about everything that happened and how the Duke administration responded t......more

Goodreads review by ALB on November 17, 2016

I really wanted to like this book, but though it was informative, there was something strange in the narration, a sort of unnecessary tone. This case is a massively important case to keep in mind, but although these men were unquestionably the victims of the failure of our judicial system and the fo......more