"Code one of silence, not honor"

by Johnette Howard
March 31, 2006

There's something disgustingly wrong when a Duke University men's lacrosse team, which includes 14 players from Long Island, puts some skewed code of silence ahead of telling Durham, N.C., police everything they know about the alleged rape, sodomizing, choking and beating of an exotic dancer by three unidentified men at a March 13 team party held at the house of three co-captains.

If the Duke players had a shred of decency, they wouldn't be hiding behind their lawyers right now. They wouldn't be refusing as a group to talk to police. They'd worry about identifying the attackers and lancing the heightened racial tensions in town and on campus. (The accuser, a black woman from a nearby college, told police her three attackers were white.)

Instead, not one of the 47 lacrosse players in the Duke program has broken ranks and spoken to investigators about what happened at the house that night. The code is that strong....

Police say an exam of the woman that night at the hospital showed injuries consistent with sexual assault. A next-door neighbor who was on his porch that night corroborated the dancer's description of the party and the racial epithets that were yelled at her as she ran into the street.

Among the things police say they found when they searched the party house two days later were one of the dancer's shoes and five acrylic fingernails she said she lost while unsuccessfully fending off the alleged 30-minute attack. She says it occurred after one man threatened her with a broomstick and she was dragged into a bathroom by two other men and told, "Sweetheart, you can't leave."

There are times when sports are downright magical. Then there are times like this, when something so offensive happens that you think the whole narcissistic, sex-saturated, self-important world of privilege that male athletes lay claim to -- even no-name lacrosse players -- needs to be blown up and re-built from scratch....

http://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/ny-sphow0331,0,5063605.column?coll=ny-sports-columnists