Two-time Super Bowl winner Peyton Manning will be returning to the University of Tennessee to serve as a professor of practice in the fall 2023 term at the College of Communication and Information (CCI). It’s somewhat of an interesting move considering the school was the location where the 47-year-old allegedly engaged in sexual misconduct in a team training room when he was 19 years old. During the alleged incident in 1996, which has led to two separate settlements and is rarely mentioned, Manning (who has denied he did anything wrong) placed his naked buttocks and genitals on the face of a 27-year-old female trainer who was examining the foot of the star quarterback. According to Manning, the reason he pulled down his shorts was to moon a classmate.
“It’s a lie,” ex-Tennessee athletic trainer Jamie Naughrigh told Inside Edition in 2017. “I felt something on my face and Peyton had pulled his shorts down and had sat his anus and his testicles on my face, so I pushed him up and out he turned around and pulled his shorts back up. It was anger. It was violence. It was definitely a predator, intimidating, anger, violent eyes that he had.”
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Admittedly, his Sweetens Cove brand makes pretty good whiskeyWhatever happened or didn’t happen in 1996, it wasn’t enough to dissuade Tennessee from bringing Manning back to campus this fall. In his role, which he will not be compensated for, Manning will join select classes as a featured expert and work alongside the college’s faculty to provide learning experiences for CCI students.
A five-time MVP in the NFL, Manning led the Volunteers to an SEC championship in 1997 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Tennessee with a degree in speech communication. He’s put that degree to relatively good use in his post-NFL career and regularly appears in commercials and in the so-called Manningcast series with his brother Eli on ESPN.
“There is no other ambassador for our college and university like Peyton Manning, and we are proud to welcome him to the college’s faculty,” said CCI dean Joseph Mazer. “Peyton is a true Volunteer and I look forward to our students gaining invaluable knowledge from him as we continue to prepare the next generation of communication and information leaders.”
The No. 1 pick in the 1998 NFL Draft, Manning was 39-6 as a starting quarterback at Tennessee and holds the school record for career passing yards (11,201) and touchdown passes (89).
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