Regulator owner Tom Campbell is introducing Don Yaeger and Coach Pressler. Said at first he thought “where there’s smoke, there must be fire,” but later he said he realized it wasn’t smoke, but a smokescreen.
Pressler and Yaeger get a standing ovation.
First question from Gene Devine: How come nobody believed you?
Pressler: Nobody was willing to wait for any evidence. “I swore on my children that they didn’t do this. I said wait for the DNA.”
He mentions the Jon Benet Ramsey case in which a man in Thailand confessed to the crime and when they checked his DNA it was negative: “No DNA, no case, and this was for a man who confessed.”
Question: What do you think about an athletic department that says, “It’s not about the truth?”
Pressler: So many faculty and administrators feel the students exist for them, “But it’s the other way around.”
Question: What did you and the president of Bryant University talk about in your job interview?
Pressler: “I sat on the couch in his office and he asked me, Mike, is this true? I told him no one touched her and he believed me and I got the job.”
Jackie: If Mike Nifong were standing beside you tonight what would you say to him?
Pressler: I’m not sure I’d be saying a lot. I’d be doing a lot. But he’d ask him, “Why?” Up in Rhode Island “they look at North Carolina as a disgrace because of this one man.” “I lost my career at Duke. Those seniors lost their senior season.” “Is that enough?”
Gene Brown: Would you comment on the Durham Police Department’s role?
Pressler: “The coercion, what they tried to do to get those guys to say something.” “They’re going to get theirs in the end.” He notes that Himan and Gottlieb got attorneys today and mentions Nifong’s “why do you need attorneys” remark.
