CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ Even in college, 6-foot-3 Jerry Richardson had an imposing presence.
He was captain of Wofford's football team, a star receiver who also kicked the ball and returned punts. He racked up honors on campus as easily as he broke tackles on the field.
"He was sort of bigger than life," recalls fellow student Carroll Gray.
Richardson remained an imposing figure through a pro football championship, a thriving business career and ultimately as the man who brought the NFL to Charlotte. In many ways he was as striking as the 13-foot bronze likeness outside Bank of America Stadium.
But in less than 48 hours last weekend, the image that Richardson had so methodically built and carefully guarded crashed amid accusations of inappropriate behavior, secret settlements and a racial slur.
What began with revelations in Sports Illustrated ended with Richardson's decision to cede control of the organization and, at season's close, sell the team he'd built from a dream.
"There will be an awful lot of good things that he's done," says Richard Vinroot, mayor when the NFL came to Charlotte. "But these other things are certainly going to cloud that legacy. For most people the bad will be much easier to remember than the good."
It's been a stunning fall for a man who rose so high. The man obsessed with control found himself buffeted by stories and social media posts he was powerless to stop. The accusations scarred his personal reputation as surely as criminal charges against former players once marred the image of his team.
Richardson's fall comes at a time when similar accusations have toppled giants of the arts and media and brought public recognition to the women who broke their long-held silences.
Some say he fell victim to changing times and workplace mores.
Felix Sabates, a luxury car dealer and longtime fixture of Charlotte's professional sports scene, draws a distinction between sexual assault and harassment and "talking trash."
"In my opinion, if this would have happened 30 years ago, people would have laughed about it and kept going," he says. "Today you can't do that."
But Sabates adds: "There's a big difference between sexual harassment and stupidity."
Several female employees told Sports Illustrated that Richardson asked them if he could personally shave their legs. Some spoke of backrubs "that lingered too long or went too low." Several recounted "the seatbelt maneuver," where he would reach across female passengers to fasten their seatbelts and brush their chests in the process.
SI reported at least four former employees got "significant" financial settlements in exchange for their silence. Richardson apparently wanted to keep the payments a secret. He never told the NFL or his ownership partners about them.
