After last Sunday, Denver Broncos Quarterback Peyton Manning added a second Super Bowl to his long resume of impressive achievements. What Manning has done on the football field has been great. He had success in college at the University of Tennessee and the Manning family has a rich history of football, specifically through his brother Eli Manning and their father, Archie.

Shaun King prompts new discussion

However, after reading a piece from New York Daily News writer Shaun King over the weekend, there is so much more to football than what is being talked about with not only Peyton's name but Archie's as well. The mainmedia, because VAVEL has morals, often forgets that life comes before sports. Peyton Manning is not this great role model that everyone should look to as the NFL's golden boy. If you do, you should probably rethink your morals in life or at least do some research on Manning if you live under a rock.

First of all, props must be given to Shaun King for an excellent piece of investigative journalism and not just following suit and rooting on everyone's hero. In King's article, and that's where every subsequent reference will be from here on out, he talks about the 74-page court document he obtained. The document alleges a sexual-assault scandal, cover up, and smear campaign of the victim. He also mentions that thirteen years ago the USA Today obtained these court documents, but for reasons that no one can explain, the documents were never released by them.

Before this goes any deeper, there is something that needs to be addressed. People that defend Manning sit back and say "Who cares?" and they talk about how long ago this was. But let's get one thing straight to refute that defense of the NFL's golden boy. Rape, sexual assault, and things of that nature have no expiration date. Surely, time heals all wounds, but that does not change the fact that it occured.

The incident in question

What happened with Manning came on February 29th, 1996 when Manning forcefully moved his genitals and his rectum on to an associate athletic trainer's head. The associate athletic trainer, Dr. Jamie Naughright, went to the University of Tennesee about the incident and things got really interesting from there. Now let's keep in mind it does not make much sense for Naughright to make this story up, as the Manning boys tried to say that she did. Why? Because Naughright has a B.A., a Master's and a Doctorate degree. Why on earth would she need to make something like this up?

But Peyton Manning got his way, as he was an athlete, and Naughright was asked to leave the school after the incident. Naughright was also asked by two different staff members at Tennessee to blame the incident on a different athlete, and a black one at that. Manning made up an elaborate story about how he mooned a fellow student-athlete in the training room. This student, Malcolm Saxon, claimed that he was never mooned by Manning and is on record as saying that he was on neither person's side. But yet again, Manning got the special treatment and Saxon ended up having his eligibility taken away. Now one may think that Saxon would feel compelled to lie about the story and side with Manning so he could regain his eligibility, but that never happened.

As for Naughright, she revitalized her career and worked for Florida Southern until the Mannings released a book. What Manning said in his book destroyed her career there and in college athletics altogether. It wasn't until this happened that Naughright had enough to fight and win a defamation lawsuit against the University of Tennessee.

The details of the entire case are disgusting, and this is old news. However, if this kind of thing were to happen nowadays, it would have rocked the sports world. What makes it worse is there are reports that ESPN has been told to not talk about this story or the investigation behind Manning's alleged HGH use. What's even more sickening is ESPN tore down Penn State University after the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal rocked State College but are now protecting Manning. Reports swirled on Monday that ESPN employees were told to not talk about this situation, this column by Mr. King, or his HGH allegations.

Manning can no longer be given a pass

Peyton Manning has gotten a pass in his career but this can no longer continue. His legacy is damaged and he is a sick human being. It's not so much what he is alleged of doing. The worst part is that Manning and Naughright settled in court in 1997, but he then chose arrogance and decided to break the confidentiality agreement and continued to reign terror on this woman's life.

There comes a point in time where we need to put morals above sports. The NFL is a religion which owns Sundays. With that being said, this would have destroyed his image had it been around in this day and age of social media and instant news. As far as this writer is concerned, he is not the clean imaged guy that peruses around humming Nationwide jingles and promoting Papa John's on our televisions. There is a type of evil that exists in people for them to do the things that Manning is accused of doing. The media should be ashamed of themselves for not covering this more thoroughly and people are going to give the excuse that this is ancient history. But once again, sexual assault has no expiration date. Manning should be apologizing to Naughright as far as anyone should be concerned. In this writer's opinion, this "ancient history" is very relevant and if anyone defends it, they were probably brought up the wrong way. Have some morals and stop putting sports before everything.