Not only was Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino riding a motorcycle without a helmet when he crashed Sunday night, but he also had a 25-year-old athletic department employee riding with him, and he lied about that detail.
The police report from the crash says 25-year-old Jessica Dorrell was on the back of Petrino’s motorcycle, though she miraculously was uninjured. Dorrell left in her car while Petrino was taken to the hospital by a police captain who also serves as Petrino’s security guard during the football season. That’s where the cover-up began.
A release from the University of Arkansas earlier this week said Petrino was involved in a wreck “that involved no other individuals.”
Petrino also left out that Dorrell was on the motorcycle when speaking with the media.
“When I came out of a ditch, there was a lady there that had flagged down a car. And the guy that was in the passenger seat said get in we’ll just take you right to the hospital,” he said, per ArkansasSports360.
Petrino told the media that he had spent the day at a lake with his wife, Becky.
In a statement issued late Thursday, Petrino says he hid the detail about Dorrell from the school.
Dorrell is a former all-SEC volleyball player at Arkansas who was named the “student-athlete development coordinator for football” last week. She graduated from Arkansas in 2008 and earned a master’s from the school two years later. She had been working as a fundraiser for the Razorback Foundation before getting her new job which includes handling on-campus recruiting and recruiting visits.
Oh yeah, and one other important detail — she’s engaged to get married to Josh Morgan, the director of swimming and diving operations at Arkansas.
Some people may have bought the excuse that they were working on football business had they been forthright about her presence on the bike, but who’s going to think anything other than funny business was going on now that we know there was a coverup?
Below is KTHV’s report on the matter:
Photo Credit: Beth Hall-US PRESSWIRE
