FanHouse Don Imus

In the midst of a coaches' teleconference about 10 years ago, Nolan Richardson proffered why the conference, the SEC, in which he coached the Arkansas basketball team, was so stout. It was located in the South, he said, ground zero for slavery, and, as a result, the many black players who were the stars of the SEC were the products of purposeful breeding by slave owners of "big black [men] with his big woman so he [slave owner] would have a big black kid."

Coach Richardson continued to coach without much criticism and any sanction for his historical hysteria. He wasn't tarred and feathered like Jimmy the Greek was so famously for making similar comments.

Coach Richardson was spared because, unlike The Greek, he is black. He was handed a pass because of the extra gravitas he carried as the second black coach to lead a team to a Final Four championship, and because we in the media -- especially commentators of color -- are particularly uncomfortable criticizing people of color for such transgressions and gaffes.

The whole Don Imus/Adam "Pacman" Jones uproar didn't last very long, did it? It was like one minute everyone was getting upset, and the next minute everyone was asking, "Why should we care what this guy says?" Even Al Sharpton seems to have moved on.

But Jason Whitlock has a column at FoxSports.com in which he argues that while we shouldn't care about Imus, it actually is worth addressing the point that Imus claimed he was trying to make in asking "What color" Jones is.

Well, it's the end of June, and we have roughly four weeks until the start of training camps, and this place is dead (anyway) until then. With most of the NFL news being of the off-the-field variety, we'll fire up the Live Blog-o-Chat Machine to talk about Pacman Jones, Don Imus, Chad Johnson, Ahmad Bradshaw, Ray Lewis and anybody else who made offseason news marginally related to the game of football.

Here's some homework; the pointing and gawking starts promptly at 1PM EST.

The Dallas Morning News' Albert Breer takes us back to a simpler time, at the turn of the century, when Dave Campo was the head coach, and the Cowboys were absolutely dreadful. During Campo's reign of terror (2000-2002), Dallas won 15 times, but perhaps the most memorable game of his tenure was the 2000 Week 4 loss to San Francisco.

Terrell Owens, then a brash, young wide receiver for the 49ers, disrespected an entire region by scoring a touchdown, sprinting 50 yards to midfield, and slamming the football smack dab in the middle of the ol' Texas star. Good times.

Thankfully, Cowboys defensive back George Teague was right behind Owens, and promptly laid him out seconds after he completed his disgusting act. (Video courtesy of Breer. To skip the social commentary and get to the footage, start at about the 1:15 mark.)



Eight years later, T.O. now plays for the Cowboys and, by most accounts, is wildly popular. But Teague, who is now the coach and athletic director at Carrollton Christan, still gets asked about "the incident":

Don Imus claims he was trying to defend Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones when he responded to a report about Jones arrest record by asking, "What color is he?" But Jones himself doesn't appreciate what Imus said.

The Dallas Morning News reports that Jones had this reaction when told what Imus said:

"I'm truly upset about the comments," Jones said. "Obviously Mr. Imus has problems with African-Americans. I'm upset, and I hope the station he works for handles it accordingly. I will pray for him."

WABC, the radio station that syndicates Imus, has said it accepts Imus's explanation and will not discipline him. Imus was fired from his last job for calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."

Don Imus spoke out on his radio show today about his comments yesterday regarding Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones. Here's the audio:

Talking about police treatment of Jones, who has been arrested several times, Imus said, "What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason. There's no reason to arrest this kid six times, I mean maybe he did something once but everybody does something once -- I have. ... They shoot blacks for no reason."

Imus later added, "I know there's some people who want to get me, but you're not going to get me for this. It's ridiculous."

With another controversy about racially tinged remarks swirling around Don Imus, the radio jock has offered an explanation for his latest comments.

On today's show, Imus and on-air partner Warner Wolf were discussing Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones and his long arrest record. Imus asked Wolf, "What color is he" and when Wolf said Jones is African-American, Imus said, "Well, there you go. Now we know."

This morning Don Imus responded to a report on his radio show about Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam Jones' legal troubles by asking, "What color is he."

Within hours, Al Sharpton had issued this statement:

"I find the inference of his remark disturbing because it plays into stereotypes. Any use of stereotypes is always counterproductive. We will determine in the next day or so whether or not his remark warrants direct action on our part as we did in April of last year."

The action in April of last year that Sharpton refers to was his group's organized boycott of Imus and his sponsors, which eventually resulted in the cancellation of Imus in the Morning. He was off the air for several months before ABC Radio Networks brought him back late last year.

UPDATE: Don Imus says, "I meant he was being picked on because he's black".
UPDATE 2: Don Imus claims he was defending Adam "Pacman" Jones against racist cops.

ESPN announced today that Jemele Hill would be "relieved of her duties" (read: suspension) which, I suppose, means we are all supposed to forget what happened, move on with our lives and wait until she fires out her next column, which is almost guaranteed to be something other than edgy.

But it should at least be pointed out that while she serves her suspension, Hill herself found a similar punishment to Don Imus unacceptable enough to fill up a full column on Page Two (emphasis mine).

If it were up to me, security would have escorted the longtime radio jock out of his CBS Radio cocoon with belongings in tow days ago. But for now, I'll have to settle for a two-week suspension that doesn't begin until next week. That'll show him.

Days have passed since Imus, executive producer Bernard McGuirk and sports announcer Sid Rosenberg took turns taking cheap shots at the Rutgers women's basketball team, but I'm still boiling because too many people continue to defend Imus behind lame free-speech arguments -- remember, speech is free, but consequences are not -- and the idea that black women just don't know a good joke when they hear one.

There was nothing funny about Imus' statement. And Hill's comparison of pulling for the Celtics to painting Adolf Hitler as a victim (not to mention her pulling for the Celtics: rooting for a pedophile to escape To Catch a Predator analogy on her personal blog) is just as humorless.

We all make mistakes. But any attempt by Hill to chalk up her Hitler comments to humor, free speech or ignorance flew out the window the second she wrote this article on Imus.

The Scripps Howard Foundation's annual National Journalism Awards were announced last week. Sports writers have an uphill battle in winning these types of awards, measured against other writers who take on slightly more serious topics like education and climate change and war, but here's the citation for commentary:

Jason Whitlock of The Kansas City (Mo.) Star receives $10,000 and a trophy for his ability to seamlessly integrate sports commentary with social commentary and to challenge widely held assumptions along the racial divide.

Specific columns of Whitlock's weren't cited, but there was one story, more than any other, that Whitlock used as a springboard to his current position as the go-to guy for people seeking opinions on the intersection of race and sports: Don Imus calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." Whitlock ripped both Imus for what he said and those who bashed Imus without likewise bashing the common use of the term "ho" in popular culture.

"It's a tremendous honor," Whitlock said. "I'm really humbled. Mike Royko, my idol, received one of these awards in 1981. I couldn't be in any better company."