Buck McNutter

Buck McNutter is Georgia Tech’s football coach, a celebrated and handsomely compensated recruit whose authority in the novel extends beyond the field into the public crisis surrounding Fareek Fanon. When Fanon is accused of rape, McNutter treats the case as a problem for himself and the university as well as for the player, and works to persuade Charlie Croker to speak publicly for fairness and against hasty judgment. His advocacy mixes a caution against claiming knowledge he does not have with an effort to normalize the sexual attention athletes receive and to enlist Croker’s stature in a citywide appeal.

Identity and Status

McNutter has been recruited away from the University of Alabama with an unusually lucrative package. The Stingers, a new alumni football-boosting group, raise enough money to increase his salary and guarantee him $875,000 a year; they also secure him a house in Buckhead at no cost. The contract makes him a conspicuous beneficiary of the city’s devotion to football, and places him among the people able to turn athletic fame into material privilege.

The house on Habersham Road gives that privilege a visible setting. Roger White arrives there at dusk and takes in the elevated lawns, large homes, mature trees, clipped boxwood, and flowering dogwood of an affluent stretch of Buckhead. He contrasts the scene with Niskey Lake, where successful Black professionals also have large houses and lawns, but where the landscape does not carry the same aura of inherited authority. McNutter’s home thus registers more than his personal success: it sits within a social geography that makes Roger acutely aware of who is presumed to belong. Later, Charlie recognizes the property as the former home of Langhorn Epps, a figure associated with old Atlanta wealth and civic standing. The coach’s new residence makes the changing distribution of status tangible without erasing the older hierarchy the place represents.

The Coach at Home

Roger first meets McNutter at the coach’s house on a Saturday night during Freaknik. McNutter is immediately recognizable to Roger from television and newspaper coverage. His bulk, broad neck, carefully arranged silver-blond hair, yellow polo shirt, and blue blazer make him a highly visible public figure; the narration renders his body as almost a single solid mass. The polished appearance and practiced warmth coexist with physical force. He greets Roger enthusiastically, extends an enormous hand, and grips so hard that Roger winces.

When Charlie visits later, McNutter repeats the same expansive welcome. He treats a previous brief meeting at a Georgia Tech reunion as though it had made them old friends, then gives Charlie another crushing handshake. Charlie answers by squeezing back, and the encounter briefly becomes a contest between two large men, neither willing to yield until McNutter releases his grip first. The repeated greeting establishes a recognizable social performance: McNutter uses easy familiarity to draw visitors in, while his handshake makes the power and competitiveness beneath that friendliness physically felt.

The Case and McNutter’s Appeal

McNutter calls Roger to the house because Fanon has a serious problem. He describes the accusation as arising from a Freaknik party the previous night and says that Fanon denies wrongdoing. McNutter makes clear that he, too, is in difficulty, as is Georgia Tech. His concern therefore encompasses the player’s predicament, his own position as coach, and the institution whose fortunes are tied to its football star.

Roger’s account to the mayor later identifies the accused woman’s father as Inman Armholster, a connection that makes the case especially charged. In the meeting at McNutter’s house, the coach directs Fanon to tell Roger who the young woman is. McNutter’s role is not to investigate the allegation in the evidence presented here, but to bring Roger into the matter and seek help for Fanon. His invitation places the lawyer inside a controversy in which the facts remain disputed and the personal and institutional stakes are already high.

When McNutter later approaches Charlie, he carefully limits what he is asking him to say. He acknowledges that neither he nor Charlie knows whether Fanon is guilty, and says Charlie need not praise the player or declare him innocent. Instead, Charlie could speak from his own experience as a football star at Georgia Tech: the pressures attached to celebrity and the ways others may try to exploit an athlete. McNutter also concedes that Fanon is difficult to get along with and has not been taught ordinary courtesy. This qualification lets him advocate for caution without presenting Fanon as personally agreeable or claiming that the accusation is false.

Persuasion, Performance, and Consequence

McNutter’s argument expands from the defense of one athlete to the danger of Atlanta dividing along racial lines. He imagines Charlie appearing at a press conference to urge the public to slow down, wait for facts, and remain fair. In McNutter’s account, Croker’s presence would be read as an act of courage and leadership, and the Journal-Constitution and the wider city would applaud him. The appeal is strategic as well as civic: McNutter offers Charlie a public role whose symbolic force comes precisely from his identity as a prominent white businessman speaking in a racially charged case.

Charlie asks which other courageous white people are expected to appear. McNutter names Herb Richman, who owns DefinitionAmerica, but concedes that Richman does not carry much weight. McNutter’s answer leaves Charlie facing the prospect that he would be the most consequential white participant in the proposed show of support. It also reveals the limits of the coalition McNutter can assemble: the public appeal depends on a small number of recognizable figures, and the visibility that gives their participation value also makes it politically risky.

At the meeting, McNutter reinforces his case by describing the attention athletes receive from women and by suggesting that such advances are an enduring feature of being a football star. He presents Fanon as a major athlete who is approached by groupies, including in public settings, and asks Charlie to recognize that context. This argument does not establish what happened at the party. Instead, it offers a general account of athletes’ sexual status as a reason not to rush to judgment—a move that can support procedural caution while also shifting attention from the particular allegation to a broader story about celebrity and sexual availability.

McNutter’s characterization consequently rests on a tension between restraint and normalization. He expressly refuses to claim knowledge of Fanon’s guilt, yet he also frames the accusation through a familiar narrative of star athletes and willing admirers. His effort to recruit Croker turns the coach from a private employer into a broker of public meaning: he tries to convert football loyalty, celebrity, and racial symbolism into an appeal for civic calm. The evidence does not resolve the allegation or show the eventual outcome of McNutter’s campaign, but it establishes how he seeks to shape the response—to defend the possibility of a fair hearing while asking powerful men to make that position visible.