You’ve probably made it your whole life up until the last week not thinking about Peyton Manning’s butt even once. It’s never crossed your mind, but now it’s all over your news feed. Not just his ass, oh no. If it was just Peyton’s backside, then we could all just share a laugh, a sigh of relief and go on with our lives. No, it’s much more than that.
It’s his “gluteus maximus, the rectum, the testicles and the area between the testicles” as asserted by former University of Tennessee trainer Dr. Jamie Naughright, who claimed to have extensive knowledge of those areas of Manning’s anatomy after he put them, unwelcomed, upon her face.
Manning has always asserted that he was just mooning a teammate and, apparently, accidentally got his ass on Naughright’s face. Or maybe she just saw his naked ass and was horrified. I’m not clear and really that’s not what I’m writing about.
I’m writing about Manning’s gluteus maximus, rectum, testicles and area between the testicles because according to Naughright’s 74-page legal document filed in a harassment case against the University of Tennessee, Manning just couldn’t stop cramming them onto people’s faces.
In that 74-page document Naughright says she saw Manning cram his naked ass on two male athletes faces after he’d laid it across her forehead. She doesn’t mention the athletes by name, and that’s a damn shame, but here’s what she does say.
“Mr. Manning looked at me,” it reads on Page 21 of the document. “The athlete was behind me. He pulled down his pants and sat on the athlete’s face.”
Later on that same page she says Manning did it again, “Mr. Manning saw me, walked over to the gentleman, pulled his pants down, and sat on the gentleman’s face while looking at me, pulled his pants back up, looked at me, and headed off into the locker room.”
According to this woman Peyton Manning could just casually walk into any room at any time, whip out his ass, and plant it on someone’s head. And none of these people, other than Naughright, seemed to have a big problem with it. These men, these athletes and fellow players just accepted Peyton Manning’s anus and testicle sack draped across their hairline like sombreros and couldn’t care less. It was just a mean-eyed Manning stare down, aimed directly at her, and some poor guy getting teabagged blind. The pink-eye must have been rampant in that training room.
Naughright settled her suit with the university and eventually sued Peyton Manning twice for violating the gag order, still claiming he was mooning another man and never once admitting that he made half the athletic department wear his scrotum as a top hat at the slightest whim.
How much of this is true? We’ll never really know. The document was made public by New York Daily News columnist Shaun King, who has been on a crusade against Manning since Super Bowl 50. King didn’t like the public and sportswriter reaction to Cam Newton’s oddball, sullen press conference after the Super Bowl and thinks a lot of the vitriol aimed at Newton is based on his race. I can tell you right now. I think King is right.
But King has gone a step further and, in defending Newton, decided to try to tear down Manning completely. Manning has become King’s white whale, for lack of a better analogy, and he’s dedicated himself to crapping all over Manning’s legacy to the point where it’s embarrassing for everyone involved.
As Mike Florio has stated in more knowledgeable terms than I ever could, this document was submitted by Dr. Naughright in her case. It takes her side. Tells her story. To use Florio’s words, it is “necessarily, one-sided.”
King didn’t see it this way. He seems to think it’s a document with some sort of legally binding power, not the “she said” version to Manning’s “he said” version that he put in his book and in a later interview that she sued him over. In fact. it’s important to note that she never sued Manning for anything other than violating a gag order. His testicles, rectum, area between the testicles and gluteus maximus have never been charged with anything.
Florio again stepped in to clear up King’s misconceptions, saying, “Frankly, King’s second column causes me to sincerely question the intelligence or motives of King, and of his editors.”
What really happened back in 1996? Only a handful of people know and they have different stories. King’s documents prove nothing, but neither does Manning’s book. That’s where it is and where it will be until the sun burns out.
But if we keep talking about it, then we have to continually see in our mind’s eye Peyton Manning plopping his corn hole atop the nasal bridge and T-zone of every innocent man and woman who accidentally ventured into Tennessee’s athletic training facility. And I for one have thought about Peyton Manning’s ass crack and coin purse enough.
