In an Instant, Message Has a Lasting Impact

"He has no concerns as far as violence in any part of his life," Guy Caparelli said. "He's very remorseful. He's embarrassed by what's going on. He is a very mature young man that committed an immature act."

Feeling Out of Place

Caparelli gained more than 5,000 yards during his varsity high school career, and he was rated among the top 20 senior football players in Virginia during the 2005 season. He took official recruiting visits to Virginia Tech and Wake Forest, and when he returned home from Wake Forest, he canceled scheduled visits to Virginia and Central Michigan. He had found his home.

As a college freshman in 2006, he sat out as a redshirt and watched the Demon Deacons win their first ACC football championship in 36 seasons. Last fall, he carried the ball seven times for 19 yards but dislocated his left shoulder in Wake Forest's third game, against Army. He returned later in the season, but when the problem recurred, he underwent surgery.

Wake Forest Coach Jim Grobe said he was using the Army game as an audition for all the team's running backs, and Caparelli was "right in the mix for playing time, no question."

A month after the surgery, while toilet paper still clung to trees on campus in commemoration of the Demon Deacons' victory in the Meineke Car Care Bowl on Dec. 29, Caparelli found himself suspended from school, and as a result, off the football team.

"When I heard that this had come up, I was totally shocked and really in disbelief because I've never had any problems whatsoever with Lucas," Grobe said, comparing Caparelli's infraction to airline passengers making ill-advised jokes that have to be taken seriously. "I just feel really bad for the kid because I think he's a really good kid."

Caparelli felt at home in the Demon Deacons' football program, and he speaks highly of his coaches, teammates and the Wake Forest faculty, as well as a few friends he had made outside of football, friends he says he regrets lumping into the catch-all "arrogant, rich, spoiled little brats" online rant.

But Caparelli did feel out of place at a school with a $36,560 tuition and where more than 50 percent of undergraduates study abroad. He is short on specific examples, but said encounters such as a snide comment at a party or a backward glance in the cafeteria elicited thoughts of inferiority and were "slowly poking" at him.

They eventually poked their way onto his Facebook page.

"I would get a feeling at times that because of my background, compared to some of the students' backgrounds at Wake Forest, I was maybe looked down upon, because I didn't have the money that some kids were able to have, or the resources, or I dressed differently from them," he said. Caparelli, who has not been back to Wake Forest since his campus judicial hearing, provided contact information for some of his friends there outside of the football team. One declined to comment, and others did not return phone calls.

"People still love him and we miss him and we definitely want him to come back," said Wake Forest running back Josh Adams, the 2007 ACC rookie of the year who roomed with Caparelli on road trips. "We just wish the best for him."

An Abrupt Return

The day after his Facebook postings, Caparelli flew from Dulles International Airport to Winston-Salem to start the second semester. He had no idea he was a wanted man.