Pressler

SMITHFIELD — Angry and bitter for a few months after he was forced to resign as lacrosse coach at Duke University last April in the wake of rape charges against three of his players, Mike Pressler revealed the depth of his feelings only to family and close friends.

Despite numerous requests to comment publicly, even as the prosecution’s case crumbled and he started a new career as head coach at Bryant University, Pressler remained silent.

Until yesterday, when his emotion poured like bubbles from a freshly uncorked bottle of champagne.

Gripping a piece of paper on which he had condensed 13 months of thought into 13 lines and speaking with a resolve that was almost palpable, Pressler celebrated the fact that truth — “the same truth today as it was a year ago” — had finally prevailed in a case that rocked one of the nation’s prestigious universities, raised issues of class, race and athletics elitism and shattered the lives of 47 young men and their families, and the woman who alleged that three of them had raped her.

“The injustice, the lies and the myths have been fully exposed,” Pressler told a gathering of regional and national media and Bryant administrators and students in the circular Grand Hall of the Bello Center. He spoke for a little more than two hours before his Bulldogs played Bentley and a little more than two hours after North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced that the state was dropping charges of sexual offense and kidnapping against David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, and that based on a thorough review of the evidence, they were innocent of all charges.

Rape charges were dropped in December after the woman said she could not testify that a penis had penetrated her, one of the factors defining rape under North Carolina law.

“I am thrilled, overjoyed and relieved for Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann and their families. They have suffered greatly and unjustly. I am so proud of their resolve, their strength and the first-class manner in which they handled this entire episode,” Pressler said, adding that he hopes all the Duke players and their families “affected by this horrific situation” can move on.

Last March an exotic dancer, a mother of two and student at predominantly black North Carolina Central University, was hired to perform at an off-campus party organized by the nationally ranked lacrosse team. She alleged that three players raped her in a bathroom. Duke President Richard H. Brodhead canceled the season, suspended a player for sending a hateful e-mail and commissioned several reports, one of which exonerated Pressler of wrongdoing.

Pressler, Duke’s coach for 16 seasons and the NCAA Division I national coach of the year in 2005, resigned under pressure on April 5, 2006.

District Attorney Michael Nifong, running for election last year, continued to press the case even though the alleged victim changed her story multiple times and two DNA tests were negative. The state bar association filed ethics complaints against him in December and Cooper removed him from the case in January. He faces trial by the state bar in June.

Asked what he would say to Nifong, Pressler replied: “I was very confident that justice would be served, it will be served to all the people that it applies to, and what goes around comes around and we’re counting on the powers that be in the State of North Carolina to make sure that it’s dealt with accordingly.”

Anger and bitterness turned to joy and excitement, Pressler said, when Bryant offered him the lacrosse job last August. Bryant President Ronald K. Machtley sat in the crowd yesterday.

“For Mike and for his players at Duke, it’s a fine day to move on with their lives,” he said.

Pressler said that he is proud that his players told the truth from the beginning— “Two days after this happened I knew what the truth was . . .” — that they stayed together and none of them transferred. He was in Durham Tuesday for a memorial service for veteran Duke golf coach Rod Myers and spoke to his former team at the invitation of its new coach, John Danowski. He would have remained there but for the Bryant-Bentley game here last night.

He lamented that “so many folks were so quick to put their agenda out there before looking at the facts. . . . I think the key thing is you got to step back, take a hard look at it, squint at it, what’s the truth here and wait. When you have people’s lives in your hands and you’re talking about that four-letter word that begins with an ‘r’ and all those things that go with it, you take a long hard look at that, I would think.”

Although there will be no criminal trial, Pressler said he felt he and his players were on trial for a couple of months last year.

“All of a sudden, the evidence starts coming out. And all of a sudden, the rape charges are dropped in December. And all of a sudden, all of that’s playing out in the media and then you see the pieces kind of turning around, maybe a 180 so to speak, in the public-opinion polls,” he said.

He brushed aside questions about his lawyer’s fees and a possible wrongful dismissal lawsuit against Duke, saying, “Everybody’s got attorneys. They don’t give themselves away . . . I’m working hard to beat Bentley at 7 o’clock tonight.”

Pressler said “it’s about staying the course here, and I always said I’d finish my command when those guys were vindicated. And so today at 2:30 my command at Duke University is concluded.”

One of the trio, Seligmann, might finish his lacrosse career in Pressler’s neighborhood. Brown coach Lars Tiffany was recruiting him but could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Pressler has co-authored a book with Don Yaeger about the Duke case. It’s Not About the Truth is due in bookstores in June.

mszostak@projo.com