You may have heard about the heroic act attributed to University of Southern California cornerback Josh Shaw earlier this week. Shaw suffered severe injuries to his ankles and claimed it had happened when the leapt from a second storey balcony to rescue his young nephew who was struggling in a pool.
It now turns out that none of that was true.
Here's Shaw's statement on the matter:
On Saturday, August 23, 2014, I injured myself in a fall. I made up a story about this fall that was untrue. I was wrong to not tell the truth. I apologize to USC for this action on my part.
My USC coaches, the USC Athletic Department, and especially coach Sarkisian have all been supportive of me during my college career and for that, I am very grateful.
USC had posted a story about the supposed act of heroism on their website. The University has also released a statement and apologised for publishing the initial story.
USC senior cornerback Josh Shaw came to USC athletic department officials this afternoon (Wednesday, Aug. 27) and admitted that he had lied about how he suffered his ankle injuries over the weekend.
He said that the story he told of rescuing his nephew in a pool in Palmdale, Calif., was a complete fabrication. He apologized for misleading his coaches, teammates, athletic department officials and the public.
"We are extremely disappointed in Josh," said USC head football coach Steve Sarkisian. "He let us all down. As I have said, nothing in his background led us to doubt him when he told us of his injuries, nor did anything after our initial vetting of his story.
"I appreciate that Josh has now admitted that he lied and has apologized. Although this type of behavior is out of character for Josh, it is unacceptable. Honesty and integrity must be at the center of our program. I believe Josh will learn from this. I hope that he will not be defined by this incident, and that the Trojan Family will accept his apology and support him."
Sarkisian said that Shaw has been suspended indefinitely from all team activities.
Shaw has retained Donald Etra as legal counsel. Etra will issue a statement on Shaw's behalf soon.
USC regrets the posting of the initial story on Monday (Aug. 25).
It will be interesting to discover what was so bad about how the injury occurred that Shaw felt it necessary to cover it up.
