It was a scene too outrageous to be true, like that moment in a movie that leaves everybody shaking their heads and saying: that would never happen.Yet there sat former Mississippi tackle Laremy Tunsil, in a makeshift press room, having already lost millions of dollars to a hacked video of him smoking marijuana, now admitting that he took money from his college coaches.
This video of Laremy Tunsil was the reason why he went from a potential #1 overall pick to #13 to the Miami Dolphins https://t.co/hhWsh02XAi
— Lee Harvey (@MusikFan4Life) April 29, 2016
The saddest part was he seemed oblivious to how much his night was falling apart inside the Auditorium Theatre. He smiled at those who stared at him with mouths agape, stunned at rapidity with which his NFL career was careening out of control even before it started.
“Just crazy,” he said.
On what should have been the greatest night of his life, one in which he would be one of the first five picks of the NFL Draft the 6ft 5in, 315lb tackle was powerless to stop the work of someone – he said he didn’t know who – pulling damning videos and texts from the phone’s memory and posting them on his Twitter and Instagram accounts.
The short video of him smoking a bong hit through a gas mask under a confederate flag was apparently so jarring to NFL coaches and general managers that he tumbled from the fourth or fifth pick to Miami at No13. Then after the Dolphins picked him there came another post, this one on his Instagram account, showing a series of text messages between he and a Mississippi athletic department official in which he appeared to be asking for $305 to pay his mother’s electric and water bills.
Betrayed by his phone and a friend who had apparently become his enemy and trapped in a press conference that no one could believe he was giving, Tunsil did something few players do when asked if they have cheated. He said “yes.”
Does this mean you took money from Ole Miss coaches? someone asked.
“I’d have to say yeah,” he said.
“Jesus,” gasped a reporter at the press conference.
Tunsil smiled and nodded again.
“Have you talked to the NCAA…” someone started to ask.
Staring at a public relations disaster, an associate of Tunsil’s agent Jimmy Sexton, pushed her head through the blue curtains behind Tunsil, trying desperately to pull her client from disaster. “There will be no more comments,” she said.
She was about two minutes too late.
She would try to fix the damage by explaining that Tunsil had not seen the posts on his Instagram account, that he didn’t know what was in the text exchange that clearly suggested a financial arrangement between he and the Ole Miss official. “This all happened while he was up here,” she shouted. But her words fell empty. The damage had been done. The most extraordinary unraveling of a player at the draft had just happened before her.
In many ways, the turmoil around Tunsil on Thursday exposed much of what is wrong with the NFL and college sports today. His crimes, revealed by an anonymous villain, were using a drug that is now legal in a number of US states, and trying to keep the lights on in his mother’s house. He is hardly the first football player to smoke pot, but teams appeared terrified by the creepy image of his eyes peering from something straight from the trenches in world war one. By saying yes to taking money from Ole Miss he broke the silent covenant all college athletes make when they break NCAA rules: deny to save the coach.
And Tunsil’s worried handlers seemed to know just how big a deal this was as they quickly shuffled him down the hallway outside the press conference area behind stage. They shoved him into a room with a copy machine and shut the doors. He emerged several minutes later, smiling, either oblivious or unbothered by the carnage had been left behind.
He walked back down the hall toward another press conference. He wore a black suit with gold trim he had specially-made for the draft. Around his neck was a gold necklace. On his feet he wore black shoes covered in gold studs. He said he ordered the shoes on the internet. He chuckled. After all, it was that same internet that had caused all this trouble for him.
“You do see the irony in that,” a man walking next to him said.
Tunsil laughed.
“Yeah,” he replied.
He was pulled into a room where the players do television interviews after they are drafted. An NFL official stepped in front of him and said he would only take a few questions. A reporter said he had a “football question” and the NFL official looked relieved. “Football questions are welcome,” she said.
But nobody wanted to ask Laremy Tunsil about how he would fit in the Dolphins blocking scheme. The questions that came were about anything but football and it was clear Tunsil had been told not to answer any of them. He said he had no idea who hacked his phone. He said he had made a mistake when he smoked the marijuana, that it had happened a long time ago. He said everything that occurred on Thursday night had given him “a chip on my shoulder.” He said he was “blessed” to be picked by the Dolphins.
Then the league official cut off Tunsil’s second impromptu press conference. Someone asked if he had actually admitted to taking money from Ole Miss and he refused to answer. Instead he walked away.
Eventually there will be more questions for Tunsil. For instance, why would someone about to be picked high in the NFL draft, keep such an incriminating video on their phone? Why too did he not destroy the incriminating texts between himself and the Ole Miss official? Why would the Ole Miss official so brazenly make reference to a regular bill-paying arrangement?
But those weren’t going to be answered on Thursday night. More important was the $8m to $10m he probably lost by tumbling through the draft. One network reported the Baltimore Ravens, picking sixth, took him off their draft board. Presumably several others had as well. Two months ago, he was expected to be the first player chosen but there were reports about teams’ concerns over a dispute he had with his stepfather last year, perhaps uncertain he was being truthful about the incident. When the Rams and Eagles traded up to the top two spots to take quarterbacks, projections had Tunsil going fourth or fifth. The video knocked him much farther down.
At about 10pm on Thursday, Tunsil was walked away from the interviews and into a hallway that led to some elevators. One of the elevator doors opened and he was led inside. Those around him couldn’t get him away from the draft fast enough. The doors closed and Laremy Tunsil was finally leaving the best night of his life that had suddenly become the worst.
