Emotional ex-New Mexico State players describe stint with team - ESPN

He came to New Mexico State to play basketball, maybe even live out a dream. On Wednesday, former Aggies basketball player Deuce Benjamin, flanked by his father and a former teammate, broke down as he shared the impact of his brief, troubling stay on the team.

«First it hurts, then it changes you,» Benjamin said, while choking back tears that eventually would start flowing. «There's a part of me that hasn't been the same.»

Benjamin and former Aggie Shak Odunewu held a news conference on the edge of NMSU's campus in Las Cruces to discuss the lawsuit they filed alleging teammates ganged up and sexually assaulted them multiple times, while their coaches and others at the school didn't act when confronted with the allegations.

The players, their attorneys and Benjamin's dad, William, an Aggie Hall of Famer who also is a plaintiff in the lawsuit, spent nearly an hour detailing the ways the university failed the students.

«My child has been failed. My family has been failed,» said William Benjamin as he, too, paused to hold back tears. «And as a father, I feel like I failed my son for putting him in this situation.»

New Mexico State spokesman Justin Bannister released a statement saying the school «continues to regard this matter as extremely important.»

«The kind of behavior described in those allegations has no place on our campus,» Bannister said.

As much as rehashing the gruesome details alleged in the lawsuit, the news conference provided a chance to review all the other issues that have surrounded New Mexico State — and come up anew — because of it.

One was the five-year contract extension given to athletic director Mario Moccia. It was a deal signed on the last day of the tenure of outgoing chancellor Dan Arvizu, who