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Go all the way back into Manning's previous football incarnation, when he was a god-like superstar QB at the University of Tennessee. It is on that campus where his karmic problems may have started. A young lady by the name of Jamie Ann Naughright from New Jersey did not come from a well-known family like Manning. The first person in her family to attend college, she graduated from UT with a degree in exercise physiology and a master's and doctorate in health education. After working for the Lady Vols athletic teams, Naughright was transferred to men's athletics. In fact, she became the first female associate trainer in the university's history. This is where her intersection with the great QB started. Manning, already an All-SEC quarterback, was one of the players under Naughright's care. Trying to play a juvenile practical joke, Manning pulled down his pants to moon a fellow athlete, cross country runner Malcolm Saxon. Naughright just happened to be in eye's length of "the moon," according to Manning. Naughright and Saxon tell a far more graphic story. In fact, in a 2002 letter to Manning, shared with the court in Tennessee, Saxon, the intended target of the mooning, wrote: "Bro, you have tons of class, but you have shown no mercy or grace to this lady who was on her knees seeing if you had a stress fracture." Naughright and Saxon contend that the mooning was actually an incident of far greater vulgarity. Naughright described herself as examining Manning's foot to see why he was in pain. She was positioned on her knees behind him, when, entirely unprovoked, Manning pulled down his pants and sat on her head and face. In a deposition, Naughright was more specific about the incident, but let's just say that it was much more than just a mooning. Within hours, Naughright reported this to the Sexual Assault Crisis Center in Knoxville. She ended up the villain at the university, and ultimately agreed to leave Tennessee in a settlement that paid her $300,000. That should have been the end of this sordid tale, and maybe the beginning of a better karmic tale for Manning. But, Manning couldn't leave it alone. By 1998, Naughright seemed to have gotten back on track at Florida Southern College. She had become the director of the Athletic Training Educational Program and an assistant professor. According to papers in a later filing, Naughright was described as being a highly respected program director, and her supervisor Kathleen Benn, recommended Naughright for an exemplary salary increase, the highest increase in the school's promotional system. At this time, Manning and his father, Archie, co-authored "Manning: A Father, His Sons, and a Football Legacy." This book, for some reason, led to yet another square-off between Manning and Naughright. Manning chose to take total exception to Naughright and Saxon's account of what happened back in Knoxville. While not mentioning her by name, Manning says, "I did it [the mooning] thinking the trainer wasn't where she would see. Even when she did see, it seemed like something she'd have laughed at, considering the environment, or shrugged off as harmless. Crude maybe, but harmless." Naughright, who Manning characterized in the book as having a "vulgar mouth," was suddenly back in a limelight she didn't deserve and hadn't asked for. Copies of the book were all over the campus where she worked and her supervisor turned on her with a vengeance. Benn had praised Naughright and recommended the highest raise possible, but was suddenly referring to her as "demanding, hostile and vindictive." Just as suddenly, Naughright was demoted and removed as the program coordinator. What Manning said in his book wreaked havoc a second time on her life and wrecked her career again. This time Naughright proceeded legally against both Mannings, Peyton and Archie, and the publisher, Harper Collins, for defamation of character.

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Peyton Manning, son of the legendary Archie Manning, is a NFL star with the Indianapolis Colts. Even before he made that leap in his career, he was a Heisman trophy contender. While at the University of Tennessee he became the subject of a very serious sexual harassment suit against both him and the University. A female trainer, after suffering his continual acts of sexual harassment, had enough when Manning exposed his naked buttocks to her and nearly sat on her face. The media remained low key, and Manning was able to settle his case with very little fanfare. Manning's behavior, which bordered on the legal definition of rape, was minimized and labeled as "a lapse in judgment." By the time the media finished polishing up Manning's bad conduct, those who happened to read the small print of the sports page, would be under the impression that he'd merely mooned her. The incident was made to have been simply a childish prank misconstrued by the public. And then there's the double standard on substance abuse. Joe Montana, one of the most famous quarterbacks of all time used illegal drugs for several years. There were allegations at various times in his career. There was even proof. Yet the sports world and mainstream media didn't report on the story until he issued public denials. Even when he later admitted to his demons during an interview with CBS, there was little fanfare. Instead the media reported that he'd entered a rehab program because of back pain. The implication of such reporting is that his problems with drugs were a result of something that happened to him, rather than something he did. However Darryl Strawberry's admission into rehab and Lawrence Taylor's candid discussion about his drug use on 60 Minutes were splayed in the media as athletes who were out of control. The media made it impossible for either of them to be victims of circumstance. Their drug use had to be a demonstration of their lack of control. The escapades of former Green Bay Packer Mark Chamura were documented throughout the sports media outlets, but never made it to the mainstream media. Perhaps they didn't think it newsworthy that a major NFL athlete was at a post-prom party with high school children. It's interesting that the media hounds didn't think the public would want to know how he played drinking games with high school kids, or that his teenage babysitter accused him of raping her in the bathroom. More than likely the reason that the story didn't splash on front pages is that it would be too hard to clean up such a mess. It's hard to put a good spin on a grown man enticing underage drinking and committing sexual assault. It's hard to make it look like the mistake he claims it was.

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Conflicting versions Manning claimed in his book that, while in the training room, in response to a track athlete who made a remark, Manning dropped his shorts to moon the athlete. "I did it thinking the trainer wasn't where she would see. ... Even when she did, it seemed like something she'd have laughed at, considering the environment, or shrugged off as harmless. Crude maybe, but harmless." Naughright and her lawyer provided a different version of events. In a court filing, her lawyer wrote that she was examining Manning to see why Manning was having pain in one of his feet and was crouched behind him when "entirely unprovoked, Peyton Manning decided to pull down his shorts and sit on Dr. Naughright's head and face." As Naughright described it in a deposition entered into the court record: "It was the gluteus maximus, the rectum, the testicles and the area in between the testicles. And all that was on my face when I pushed him up. ... To get leverage, I took my head out to push him up and off." The court record includes a letter to Manning from former Tennessee cross country runner Malcolm Saxon, who Manning said was the intended target of the mooning. Written in December 2002, the letter reads, in part: "Bro, you have tons of class, but you have shown no mercy or grace to this lady who was on her knees seeing if you had a stress fracture. ... "She was minding her own business when your book came out. Peyton, the way I see it, at this point, you are going to take a hit either way, if you settle out of court or if it goes to court. You might as well maintain some dignity and admit to what happened. ... Your celebrity doesn't mean you can treat folks that way. ... Do the right thing here." In a court filing, Naughright's lawyer says his client reported the incident within hours to the Sexual Assault Crisis Center in Knoxville. According to a filing by Naughright's lawyer, Manning at first didn't call the incident a "mooning." The lawyer wrote that Manning "denied" that anything had occurred between him and Naughright. An associate trainer, Mike Rollo, was never a witness to the incident, but he got involved because he tried to intervene to help Manning come up with a story. In a deposition cited in the filing, Rollo was asked if Naughright had ever referred to the incident as mooning. "No, unfortunately, I think that tagging is with me," Rollo answered. The next question: "In other words, you were the first person to characterize it as a mooning, is that correct?" "Unfortunately." Reached by telephone Monday, Rollo referred questions to Tennessee's lawyers, who didn't return telephone calls Monday. In court documents, Naughright's lawyer wrote that after the incident with Manning, Manning taunted her by re-enacting his conduct on two occasions. The document also said that Manning called her a "bitch" during a drug test, when he snatched a pen, which he was supposed to use to sign and date the specimen, and threw it across the room.