How a Facebook Post Derailed a Football Player's Life

For about 90 minutes, his Facebook status read: “Lucas Caparelli: recommends not going to class on Wednesday because he is going to blow up campus.” In those 90 minutes, Caparelli went from a highly-recruited running back to a persona non grata suspended by Wake Forest. “It was a dumb, immature, ignorant joke, but to me, it was a joke,” Caparelli told the Washington Post.

In his first extended interview since, Caparelli swears he “would never ever harm anybody,” but Wake Forest took no chances, suspending him for the semester. To return to the school—and the team—he’ll have to reapply, and take a barrage of psychological tests. “People are going to call it taking a chance on me,” he says. (More Wake Forest Demon Deacons stories.)