Brian Holloway — the ex-NFL star who made headlines after claiming drunken teens trashed his vacant upstate home during a wild party — exaggerated the damage in a cynical ploy to get volunteers to help fix up the rundown property, a new report charged.
The Stanford grad — now a motivational speaker and advocate for troubled youths — also exposed minors to threats and ridicule by posting their social media accounts online, according to the report on the sports and entertainment Web site Grantland.com.
The lengthy report acknowledges that revelers did cause significant damage to Holloway’s home and adjacent buildings in Stephenson, near the Massachusetts line.
“They knocked a sink off the wall, broke windows, completely ruined a carpeted area, and stole a stone statue of an eagle” that was later returned, the report said.
But the property was already in run-down condition, with damaged hardwood floors and rotted windows, and the walls of a falling-down outbuilding had been covered in graffiti for years.
Holloway — who posted social media photos and tweets of the partiers drinking, dancing on tables and posing for smirking selfies — solicited volunteers to help with the clean-up and repairs, and created a Web site, HelpMeSave300.com, that solicited cash for breast cancer and other charities.
The title was a reference to his vow to try to “save” the 300 kids he claimed had invaded his home during the Aug. 31 bash.
But Holloway — who played for the New England Patriots in his prime — refused to disclose how much if any of the money donated to his Web site went to charity or even identify the charities he claimed to be helping.
Some volunteers who worked on numerous projects on Holloway’s house that had nothing to do with the party damage said they felt duped.
“The sad thing about all this goodwill is that we’re just prettying this place up for the bank,” a volunteer told Grantland.
In late October, the Holloway home sold at a foreclosure auction to the Berkshire Bank for $400,000.
The Albany Times Union later reported that Holloway owed $1,006,348 in mortgage payments and was also behind on his school and property taxes to the tune of more than $45,000.
Holloway’s story created a national media frenzy, but the Web site argues that the facts don’t support Holloway’s version of events.
The Holloway compound was long open to neighborhood kids and friends of his own children from his two marriages, and many used the walls of a crumbling barn as a sort of guestbook, painting their names or spraying graffiti on the walls, according to Grantland.
“But at least some of the graffiti shown in the images posted on HelpMeSave300.com had been there for years,” Grantland said.
HelpMeSave300.com was intended to fight “against the urgent undertone of destruction that’s happening in our communities,” the former Pro Bowl lineman said in one interview.
“If I don’t do that, I become them. I become just as guilty and egregious as the students and the parents that have completely abandoned the post of being accountable to call out the greatness in their child,” he pontificated.
Grantland also questioned Holloway’s decision to “have checks meant for ‘breast cancer awareness’ made out to ‘HelpMeSave300’ in light of his refusal to answer questions about where the money went.”
Holloway also sidestepped questions about the propriety of posting kids’ personal information on HelpMeSave300.com, a move that resulted in online bullying and threats.
“What goes on in that real treacherous, predatory world of social media, that has nothing to do with me. They’ll bring that on themselves. It’s not my responsibility. It’s their parents’ responsibility to get that handled,” Holloway told the Web site.