I understand a reporter having to ask that question,but I don't know what they expected him to say. "Yes, we were afraid that our football program would lose some of their better athletes, and, more importantly, we were afraid that donations would go down (and we could not pay for our new stadium); so we decided to keep all the details secret." Yeah!
I'm sure the reporter expected him to lie just like he ended up doing. You have to give them an opportunity to tell the truth. At least the lie is on the record now.