POSTED 6:56 a.m. EDT, June 22, 2007
ARCHIE GOT A SEPARATE INVITE TO RING THING?
As it turns out, we might have been wrong when we said that we were wrong about the notion of special treatment for Colts quarterback Peyton Manning at the team's recent ring ceremony.
Our initial report was that Peyton was the only player permitted to bring his parents to the event. On Thursday morning, Colts manager of publicity Justin ****ens sent this e-mail to us: "The report posted on June 20 that Peyton Manning was permitted to bring his parents to the team's Super Bowl ring ceremony is erroneous. Archie and Olivia Manning were not present. Like all players, Peyton was given one guest invitation, and he was accompanied by his wife."
Not long thereafter, V.P. of public relations Craig Kelley called to tell us the same thing, and he requested a retraction. (He was very polite and generally seemed like a nice guy, by the way.)
But we didn't "retract" the story in the sense of erasing it from the site and pretending it never was there, because when we're wrong we believe that we need to acknowledge it not with fine print at the bottom of the classified ads, but with the same prominence that the incorrect report received.
As a result, we posted the corrected story, and we proceeded to contact the source who confirmed for us the notion that Peyton got special consideration for the event. And it seems that we screwed the thing up initially by not being clear with the source, and by making an unwarranted assumption -- i.e., that Archie actually accepted the invitation to attend.
So based on further discussions with the source from whom we've previously received and used information regarding the Colts, and who confirmed this specific story for us after we'd first heard about it from others, we are informed that Archie Manning's name was on the guest list.
The folks who were invited to the event were permitted to bring one guest. Peyton brought his wife. Most brought their wives/girlfriends. Others brought a parent, one coach brought his son, and a couple of players brought a former coach.
Apparently, the team got around the whole "one guest per attendee" rule with Peyton by giving Archie Manning a separate invitation to the ceremony. Presumably, if Archie had attended, he could have brought a guest, too. And that presumably would have been Mrs. Archie.
We asked ****ens and Kelley by e-mail on Thursday night whether there was a response to the notion that Archie was separately invited by the club. The response from Kelley was, "Can you tell me your source?"
Um. No. Unfortunately, disclosing unnamed sources is the quickest way to ensure that we would have no further unnamed sources. Ever.
So that's where the story currently stands. We've reiterated to Kelley our request for a response. If/when we get it, we will post it.
