St. John's vs West Virginia received some more headlines not because of the game but rather for a racist blunder by the announcer. Awful announcing gave some insight onto the matter.
http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2008/01/how-about-some-reverse-racism-talk-for.htmlAnother day and yet another questionable call regarding race. This one seems like another "not a big deal" case, but the NY Post and Phil Mushnick doesn't seem to think so. The announcer in question is SNY Sports Nite anchor, Kirk Gimenez and he had this to say about (pictured right) West Virginia Forward Joe Alexander....
SNY "Sports Nite" anchor, Kirk Gimenez, a former ESPNews anchor, Thursday night was trying to be extra slick when, over clips of St. John's-West Virginia, he said, "[WVU's] Joe Alexander going baseline, and the white boy puts it in, reverse."
While Gimenez, like Tilghman, sounded as if he were trying (too hard) to be cute as opposed to hateful, he apparently has a poor sense of current events as they relate to sportscasters and race.
SNY says Gimenez has been scolded about such cracks, but one shudders to think what would have happened to his career - and who would have led the charge (with the news media's full cooperation) - had the racial/ethnic components of both reporter and player been different.
I know this isn't a big deal at all, but why doesn't everyone just stop bringing up race all together? Nothing good will come of it if you try to be funny, cute, or hateful so why bother??? Someone's going to get pissed about something whether it's the athlete, another writer, or people who think this world is too PC.