DURHAM, N.C. - A huge crowd and dozens of reporters more than would normally attend swarmed the Duke Lacrosse field as the team played its first game in eleven months following the controversial sexual assault charges against three of its players. Walter Byers, executive director of the NCAA, was beaming. "The Duke rape case has done the little known sport of lacrosse a world of good, just a world of good," said Byers. Prior to the news of the alleged crime, a majority of Americans knew next to nothing about the sport where teams score by projecting a hard rubber ball into their opponent's goal using netted sticks. Ever since the rape charges were filed, public awareness of the sport has skyrocketed. Byers hopes that the controversy and circus sideshow atmosphere generated by the alleged crime, with its overtones of racism and class divisions, continues through the summer. "Anything that keeps lacrosse in the news is good, good, good," he said.
"I can't say enough wonderful things about that stripper [the alleged victim]," Byers added. "She is just a beautiful, beautiful person, even if it turns out she's a lying whore." But Byers reserved his highest praise for the Duke lacrosse team. "Those boys -- what can I say? We owe those horny, sex-crazed boys a debt of gratitude that we'll just never be able to repay."
