Over the weekend, Stacy Johnson-Klein and her attorney gave a lengthy interview to the Fresno Bee and offered their side of the story... or at least part of it. Some of her explanations:

-- that she wasn't abusive to her players, but only sought to instill a "healthy fear" in them.

-- that the trip to China really was a recruiting trip; that she decided to go even after the tournament was cancelled because she thought she could still find players by visiting gyms and cold-calling.

-- that she took the bottle of Vicodin from one of her players, but after taking only one pill, she threw the rest of the bottle away. (Johnson-Klein "declines to talk about the university's other charges relating to pain medication.")

-- that the pill she game to Angelica Lopez before she passed out was merely ibuprofen, and that it wasn't a big deal to take the team to dinner before getting Lopez to the hospital. "The fact that it [the bus] was diverted for 10 or 15 minutes when there's no life-threatening situation," her lawyer explained, "Maybe it sounds bad, but it's been blown out of so much proportion."

Not having all the facts, I don't know what to make of this story. The folks who run the Fresno State athletic department aren't a terribly sympathetic bunch, but at the same time, some of Johnson-Klein's explanations seem implausible, to say the least. (I only took one pill, officer, I swear!)

She'll have to forgive me if I don't get behind her effort to assume the mantle of a Title IX martyr.