Picture 3In the spring of 2006 the Duke lacrosse program was front-page and major-network news almost daily, for reasons we all remember. After the notorious party on N. Buchanan Blvd., the 2006 season was suspended. There was a serious question whether the entire program would be eliminated, and one of college lacrosse’s powerhouses would disappear.

Here’s an interesting interview with Kevin Cassese, a Duke lacrosse alum and an then-assistant coach in 2006, and Ed Douglas, a midfielder on the 2006 team, who developed a report on the team that spring for Duke President Richard Broadhead.

Here’s Cassese talking about his meeting with Broadhead after they submitted their report. It was a meeting upon which the fate of Duke lacrosse depended:

I remember being really nervous and anxious walking in. You have to remember, at the time I was a 25-year old kid who had been coaching for literally a couple years — Stony Brook for one and Duke for half. I didn’t know what I was doing, I just felt I had to get in front of this guy. I felt good about the conversation. I remember he was curious, he didn’t know very much about the sport. He didn’t know enough about the program or what to expect. I was able to put his mind at ease a little bit that lacrosse wasn’t a bunch of barbarians running around campus. I think he and others on campus were being spoon fed that. He asked a lot of questions, he wanted to get to know me, which I thought was good because he wanted to get to know what had sculpted me, which was my Duke lacrosse experience.

Obviously, Broadhead reacted favorably to the Cassese-Douglas report, because Duke lacrosse exists as we speak. I criticized Broadhead and other Duke officials’ actions at the time for seeming to leap to conclusions about guilt. So, in fairness, I have to give Broadhead belated kudos for being willing to read the report, to listen to Cassese, and to learn about lacrosse, and, specifically, the Duke lacrosse program, beyond the stereotypes being put out in the media.