My Take on Imus

My take on Chris Lehman's Imus post in: Practical Theory

My Take on Imus.

A little disclosure.

1) I grew up in western CT. I turned in my teenage years to New York radio to follow sports (Mets, Rangers, Knicks, and Giants). In that capacity I ran across Imus in his early years of shock jockism when he was local and just NY market.

2) Trust me, if you think he is racist and misogynistic in his latest comments, he was far beyond his more polished national presence of today. You do not hear him playing “the aerobics lady” with sexual grunts in the background of a female guest these days or asking a female caller to “sit on the radio while I kiss the mic”. And in full disclosure, as a less refined youth, I was right there with that kind of humor. However, even in recent years (and I hardly listen because of geography, and schedule) his crudeness has worn on me and his attempts to excuse his bad taste with the cover of charitable works, and the patina of respect because national politicians need his New York based drive time audience, have left me cold.

3) I am a long time UCONN Women’s basketball fan. Season ticket holder, alumni giver, from away back before the rise to national power. Back in the days where you could go on a Sunday afternoon and sit wherever you wanted in Gampel and take your 4 year old daughter down to see her face in the tubas (the same daughter who will graduate magna um laude in three weeks from UCONN), and when the Big East had their tournaments at Gampel you could go at 10 AM on a Saturday and see six games in a row and walk over to the Syracuse coach or the kids on St. Johns and chat about their upcoming or just game just past, and where when sitting courtside I saw the young Rebecca Lobo rip a rebound down and without hesitation power right back up to the rim and put it back, I knew the game had changed forever, because this woman finally played the game like the men.

4) Because I bleed Husky Blue, of course I hate Rutgers, and I hate Tennessee. Yet, I respect their athletes, I respect their coaches, and I respect how hard they work, how well they perform, and I love the equity of game at high levels. I do not get caught up in the media story lines. Pat versus Geno, Rutgers mouth vs. Geno’s mouth. It always about the game the adjustments, the match ups and play. I knew when LSU sagged and dared UCONN to shoot 3’s and Mel Thomas couldn’t bomb, it was over. Great game plan. Geno got out coached, and had no tools to go to. Good job LSU, great job Rutgers to shut down Sylvia Fowles in the next game.

OK, I’ll stop, but I needed to put my next comments in context. It is not only WFAN that as Chris Lehman says should be contacted but also MSNBC. He should be fired, but maybe even better than that he should be suspended for 2 weeks. Bring a whole ton of attention to his show and let him live through the consequences when he comes back. And every politician (from my two Senators Lieberman and Dodd, to John McCain, to Tim Russert, to Bill Clinton and every suck up presidential wanna be has refuse to go on, and publicly say why. Suck the very oxygen he lives on away from him and enjoy it as he dies a slow agonizing public demise.