BSM Writers
Why Is Drew Brees’ Apology Acceptable….And Grant Napear’s Not?
“There is no place in sports for social insensitivity but that rule should apply across the board in this business — and it woefully does not.”
It needn’t be argued that Drew Brees was racially insensitive, because he agrees. Beside a photo of two interlocked hands, black and white, he used Instagram to apologize for his pro-military, anti-Kaepernick stance about kneeling protests. Hours after reiterating he’ll “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America,’’ a contrite Brees acknowledged that he “completely missed the mark on the issues we are facing right now as a country. They lacked awareness and any type of compassion or empathy.’’
He never will live it down in some quarters of America, where he’ll be branded as a racist for life. Yet that life will continue nonetheless. He’ll try to win a Super Bowl, at 41, with the New Orleans Saints. He’ll shuffle into a lucrative broadcasting gig at NBC, where he’ll be groomed for “Sunday Night Football,’’ the highest-rated regular program in American television. He’ll be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And his obituary will call him one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. That’s how the career-recovery game works for most people in sports — apologize, take your lumps, carry on, keep earning your living.
But that’s now it works for Grant Napear, who was forced out this week as play-by-play voice of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings and a daily talk-show host in that very small city. Napear, too, has been branded a racist for life after regrettable social-media comments, though it’s possible he’s merely an out-of-touch dope who didn’t know better. Is he perhaps just clueless about the world in 2020? Is he a 60-year-old male who, pathetically, didn’t realize that those six words he typed on Twitter — “ALL LIVES MATTER … EVERY SINGLE ONE!’’ — are tantamount in the Black Lives Matter movement to one final two-handed press on George Floyd’s neck?
And when you compare his comments to Brees’ comments, aren’t they comparable in their ignorance? So how does one man proceed to the next day while the other becomes one of 40 million unemployed Americans? How can Brees’ boss, Saints coach Sean Payton, say he’s “proud’’ of his handling of the situation? Why have the NFL and Saints ownership not publicly condemned the comments? Where is NBC, his future employer?
All as Napear fades away, canceled by his bosses.
Yes, he failed the woke portion of the culture exam. Yes, Napear’s lapse warranted a sizable suspension from the Kings, one of 30 franchises in the most woke league on the planet. But his punishment, unlike Brees’, was of the scorched-earth variety — he was summarily forced out of two jobs, his media career likely finished after three-plus decades in the market. It reminded me of what happened to my one-time talk radio partner, Brian Davis, who, as veteran play-by-play voice of the Oklahoma City Thunder, was so overtaken by Russell Westbrook’s performance one night in 2018 that he exclaimed, “Westbrook is out of his cotton-picking mind!’’ Shortly thereafter, the Thunder didn’t renew Davis’ contract. He shouldn’t have said it, just as Napear shouldn’t have tweeted it. Realize these are human beings who make mistakes, just as Brees is a human being who makes mistakes, just as numerous other athletes who’ve published racial slurs on social media have made mistakes.
But they also are allowed to apologize and carry on, such as rookie NFL quarterback Jake Fromm, who said in a 2019 text conversation, “Just make (guns) very expensive so only elite white people can get them haha.’’ Which means the Buffalo Bills have two racially insensitive quarterbacks on their roster: Fromm and starter Josh Allen, who apologized on 2018 draft night after referring to “N——-‘’ in several tweets in his younger days. Said the Bills in a statement about Fromm: “He asked for an opportunity to address and apologize to his teammates and coaches today in a team meeting, which he did. We will continue to work with Jake on the responsibilities of being a Buffalo Bill on and off the field.”
I could go on … and on … and on. Point being: If broadcasters are being held to considerably higher standards than athletes, I’m left to ask if hiring robots, programmed by coded instructions, is the next move by an industry that cowardly chooses to ruin longtime professionals instead of using their insensitive moments to teach protocol in the 21st century.
To be clear, there is no place in sports for social insensitivity. But that rule should apply across the board in this business — and it woefully does not, with too many cases of convenient, selective punishment (and non-punishment) mocking any fairness doctrine. For instance, how many times have media people — hundreds, I’m sure — been subjected to slurs from people they cover? And how many times have those slurs been ignored, or laughed off, by the sort of franchise owners and broadcast executives who seize the chance to dump Napear?
Every media person worth his or her oats has a story. I certainly have mine. I was called a “(bleeping) fag’’ by a baseball manager, Ozzie Guillen, who enjoyed firing foul-mouthed slurs at people on a frequent basis. He was rankled, as I wrote in this space recently, because I’d criticized him for rebuking a young Chicago White Sox pitcher who didn’t hit an opposing batter with a pitch as Guillen had ordered. Because I was covering the NBA Finals and U.S. Open golfing major, he decided I was a “(bleeping) fag’’ because I wasn’t in town to report to the clubhouse and take his abuse, whatever madness that might have entailed. The story raged — Tucker Carlson, Bill O’Reilly, ESPN’s “Outside the Lines’’ — and some wondered nationally if Guillen would be fired.
Not only was Guillen not fired, the slur was pooh-poohed by White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, a supposed champion of diversity. There was a slap on the wrist by baseball commissioner Bud Selig, Reinsdorf’s buddy, which gave Guillen the rope to eventually babble his way out of a job in Chicago and psycho-talk his way out of his next position in Miami, where, as manager of the Marlins, in the heart of Little Havana, he said, “I love Fidel Castro. I respect Fidel Castro. You know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that (expletive) is still here.’’ Guillen apologized and blamed drinking splurges that had been part of his life for “25, 28 years’’ — “I go to the hotel bar, get drunk, sleep. I don’t do anything else,’’ he said — yet the Marlins only suspended him for five games despite outrage in South Florida.
And today? Guillen is gainfully employed as a baseball analyst at NBC Sports Chicago, partially owned by Reinsdorf.
If you’re going to fire Napear and run him off the face of the sporting earth, then you have to fire Guillen and run him off the face of the sporting earth. Or don’t fire anyone. That especially goes for the Kings, who have their own ethical issues. Their owner, Vivek Ranadive, had the audacity to charge the state of California — where I am a taxpayer — a monthly fee of $500,000 to utilize their former arena as a field hospital for coronavirus patients. Public backlash forced Ranadive to end the landlord-sharking after two months, but he was allowed to keep the $1 million accrued. So explain how a greedy owner suddenly becomes a hero for canning Napear? It’s better to screw taxpayers out of $1 million? Again, if you’re going to jettison Napear, you have to at least investigate Ranadive on some level. And shouldn’t the NBA also be asking the Los Angeles Lakers, valued at almost $4 billion, why they applied for and received $4.6 million in federal loan aid intended for small businesses, which owner Jeanie Buss might never have returned if the Lakers weren’t caught red-handed?
Oh, that’s not how it works in sports.
Furthermore, Napear didn’t even initiate the social-media thread that led to his ouster. NBA player DeMarcus Cousins, a man with his own legal problems and personal flaws, started the dialogue by tweeting out of the blue, “@GrantNapearshow what’s your take on BLM?’’ Cousins was among many African-American players wary of Napear’s social tones when they played for the Kings, but Napear’s response to the tweet seemed more unenlightened than intentionally hurtful. “Hey!!! How are you? Thought you forgot me,’’ began Napear, actually writing back publicly instead of inviting a private chat via direct messaging. “Haven’t heard from you in years. ALL LIVES MATTER…EVERY SINGLE ONE!!!’’
The floodgates were open. Napear had revealed himself as a racist, or so said the social-media cops, and his critics refused to hear otherwise. Chris Webber, who works for TNT as an analyst after a successful playing career in Sacramento, weighed in: “Demarcus we know and have known who Grant is. The team knows as well. I’ve told them many times. They’ve seen it. They know who he is.’’ Webber followed with two clown emojis.
Wrote Cousins: “Lol as expected.’’
Wrote Matt Barnes: “Would expect nothing less from a closet racists.’’
Napear tried to apologize, but he only exacerbated the problem: “If it came across as dumb I apologize. That was not my intent. That’s how I was raised. It has been ingrained in me since I can remember. I’ve been doing more listening than talking the past few days. I believe the past few days will change this country for the better!’’
By now, nothing could help him. Wrote Andre Miller: “All lives matter is the go-to response from racist individuals when they’re asked about #BLM. How could you be so tone-deaf to not know that? Even if it wasn’t your intent to be racist, it was an incredibly dumb thing to say.’’
Tone deaf? Yes. Incredibly dumb? Yes. Suspension-worthy? Yes.
But we’re really going to ruin the man’s career? Napear should have stopped there. Instead, he continued to make matters worse: “100% … trust me I have more black friends than white. I grieve with them that before I leave this earth we can finally walk hand in hand.’’
Again, cringeworthy. But any different than Drew Brees?
After he had time to think, Napear found clarity, telling the Sacramento Bee, “I’m not as educated on BLM as I thought I was. I had no idea when I said `All Lives Matter’ that it was counter to what BLM was trying to get across.” That’s a plausible explanation.
Later, Napear came on stronger to the New York Post: “It makes me feel sick to my stomach because it is absolutely the opposite of who I am. I am 60 years old. I will let the track record of my life and what I’ve done for my community and what I’ve done. … People who know me, of all races, I’ll let them tell the story.
“I have not once in my 32 years in doing the Sacramento Kings had any individual from either the radio station or the Kings mention anything in any way, shape or form about me and my relations with minorities, with any other group of people. That is an absolute disgrace that that would ever be said. That is an absolute disgrace.”
But hey, let’s fire him anyway. Even though Napear’s former employer, NBC Sports California, carries the same three initials as Brees’ future employer: NBC. It’s worth noting that a major name in sports media, talk host Chris Russo, came out in full defense of Napear, whom he has known since they were kids in suburban New York City.
“I have known Grant personally for 54 years. To say that Grant Napear is a racist is absurd,’’ Russo said. “In my knowledge of him … Grant Napear, trust me when I say this — this is me — is anything but a racist.”
Know what’s interesting here? Russo once said he couldn’t find a black host “worthy of doing a national talk show’’ on his Mad Dog Radio channel. Asked by a caller in 2014 about the racial imbalance, Russo said, “”What would you like us to do? There are not a million candidates. Would you like us to put on a black host for the sake of putting a person … an African-American so we can say we have a black host on? Or do you want to see if we can find a black host who is worthy of doing a national talk show?”
This was, in its way, a Grant Napear moment.
Except Sirius XM did not reprimand Russo, making him the Drew Brees of sports talk radio.
Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes a weekly media column for Barrett Sports Media and regular sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts in production today. He’s an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and radio talk host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects. Compensation for this column is donated to the Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust.
BSM Writers
Robert Griffin III Wants to Tell Your Story the Right Way
“Even if I do know you personally, I’m not going to bring that to the broadcast because that’s not my job.”
During last season’s VRBO Fiesta Bowl, Robert Griffin III was part of ESPN’s alternate telecast at field level alongside Pat McAfee. Suddenly, the Heisman Trophy winner took a phone call. Once he hung up the phone, Griffin divulged that his wife had gone into labor and proceeded to sprint off of the field to catch a flight. An ESPN cameraperson documented his run and jubilation as he returned home to welcome his daughter, Gia, into the world. It encapsulated just what motivates Griffin to appear on television and discuss football, and why he is one of ESPN’s budding talents with the chance to make an impact on sports media and his community for years to come.
“This was an opportunity for me to go out and be different in the way that the media covers the players and truly get to the bottom of telling the players’ stories the right way,” Griffin said. “I look at this as an opportunity to do that.”
Griffin was a three-sport athlete as a student at Copperas Cove High School, and ultimately broke Texas state records in track and field. In addition to that, he played basketball and was the starting quarterback for the school’s football team as a junior and senior, drawing attention from various schools around the country. He ended up graduating high school one semester early and quickly became a star at Baylor University in both football and track and field.
Robert Griffin III’s nascent talent was hardly inconspicuous, evidenced by being named the 2008 Big 12 Conference Offensive Freshman of the Year and then, three years later, the winner of the Heisman Trophy. In the end, he graduated having set or tied 54 school records and helped the program to its first bowl game win in 19 years.
Ultimately, he transitioned to the NFL in a career with many trials and tribulations, but through it all, he never lost his sense of persistence. Nearly a decade later, he returned to college, but this time as a member of the media covering the game from afar. Unlike a majority of former players though, Griffin did not formally retire from playing football when inking a broadcasting contract with ESPN.
“I haven’t retired yet at all,” he said. “I tell everyone that asks me the question that I train every day [and] I’m prepared to play if that call does come. I’ve had some talks with teams over the past two years; just nothing has come to fruition.”
While Griffin’s focus as a broadcaster is undeniable, he never thought about seriously pursuing sports media until his broadcast agent pushed him to do so. He was urged to take an audition at FOX Sports. Griffin broke down highlights and called a mock NFL game alongside lead play-by-play announcer Kevin Burkhardt. He was not prepared for that second part, but impressed executives and precipitously realized a career in the space may not be so outlandish after all.
Griffin then moved to ESPN where he experienced a similar audition process, this time calling a game with play-by-play announcer Rece Davis. Once the audition concluded, it was determined that Griffin would not only begin working in the industry, but that he would be accelerated because of his ability to communicate in an informative and entertaining style.
As a player, he saw the way media members covered teams – sometimes bereft of objectivity – and therefore saw assimilating into the industry as a chance to change that. Now, he is focused on telling the stories of the players en masse while being prepared to pivot at a moment’s notice.
ESPN’s intention was to implement Griffin on its studio coverage, but once executives heard him in the broadcast booth, the company had a palpable shift in its thinking. He was told he was ready to go out into the field and start calling games immediately, something of a surprise to him. FOX Sports felt similarly. This led to a bidding war between the two entities, which ultimately concluded with Griffin inking a contract with ESPN. He appeared over its airwaves plenty of times as a player, and even participated on a variety of studio shows in 2018 where he was almost permanently placed on NFL Live. This time around though, Griffin was suddenly preparing to work with Mark Jones and Quint Kessenich on college football games. He did not have time to consider the implications of the decision, instead diving headfirst into the craft and remaining focused on what was to come with producer Kim Belton and director Anthony DeMarco at his side.
“These guys took me under their wing, and I’m beyond indebted to them for that,” Griffin said of his colleagues. “They taught me everything that I know about the industry. They taught me everything I know about how to present things to the masses to where it can be easily digestible. They’ve allowed me to allow my personality to shine through.”
Demonstrating his personality was a facet of his makeup Griffin felt was inhibited by playing professional football, but he knows it would have been considerably more difficult to attain a chance to cover the game had he not laced up his cleats. Calling college football games with Jones accentuated his comfort in the booth because of Jones’ adept skill to appeal to the viewers and penetrate beyond the sport.
“He has the way to connect different generations of listeners to hear what he’s saying and perceive it in the same way,” Griffin said. “To me, that’s what we all strive to do in this industry is to be able to find the connective tissue between the fan who is 60 or 70 years old, and the fan who’s in their late teens or early 20s.”
From the beginning, everyone told Griffin to be himself and not adopt an alternate persona in front of the camera. That advice has guided him as he approaches his third year working in the industry.
“It is so hard to maintain a character or try to be someone that you’re not, but if you are who you are every single day, then every time you show up on camera you will be that person,” Griffin said. “I’ve made sure that when I stepped foot in front of that camera, I was going to be myself.”
Griffin identifies his style as pedagogical to a degree, critiquing players as if he was coaching them on the sidelines. He will never look to penetrate beyond football with his criticism, as drawing conclusions and using unrelated parlance could be viewed as indecorous. In short, Griffin III knows what it means to represent ESPN.
“We’re not a gossip website. We’re supposed to be critically acclaimed, prestigious journalists, and at the end of the day, that’s how I try to approach the job that I do. That’s why I got into the business – because I felt like there was a little of that going on, especially during my career, so I would never do to somebody else what was done to me.”
Over the course of his NFL career, Griffin was subject to immense criticism that went significantly beyond the gridiron. For example, sports commentator Rob Parker suggested that Griffin was not fully representative of the Black community and proceeded to question if he was a “cornball brother.” The incident resulted in Parker receiving a 30-day suspension from ESPN, and after he defended his comments and blamed First Take producers in a subsequent interview, the network decided not to renew his contract.
“My goal as a member of the media is to tell players’ stories the right way, and if I don’t know you personally, I’m never going to make it personal,” Griffin said. “Even if I do know you personally, I’m not going to bring that to the broadcast because that’s not my job.”
In addition to broadcasting college football games with Jones on ESPN and ABC, he also appears on-site for Monday Night Countdown, the network’s pregame show leading up to Monday Night Football. Making the decision to add NFL coverage to his slate of responsibilities meant that Griffin would be able to tell more stories and utilize his knowledge of players during their collegiate careers to enhance the broadcast.
The energy that he felt attending tailgates and interacting with fans at the college level gave him a unique skill set to translate to the NFL side, leading him to present the production team with an unparalleled idea for Week 1. He wanted to race Taima the Hawk, the live game mascot for the Seattle Seahawks who flies around Lumen Field prior to the start of each home game. It was an outlandish idea, but one that made sense for television because of the visual appeal it can present.
“If you know anything about hawks, they can fly up to 120-140 miles per hour, so they’re like, ‘There’s no way he’s going to beat this hawk in a race, but we’ll do it,’” Griffin said. “To that crew’s credit, they never once balked at any of the creative ideas that I brought to the table because they want to try different things and be exciting and have fun on the show.”
Griffin ended up winning the race, commencing the new season of Monday Night Countdown with immediate excitement before the Seahawks’ matchup against the Denver Broncos. He thoroughly enjoyed his first year on the show and having the chance to work alongside Suzy Colber, Adam Schefter, Booger McFarland, Steve Young, Larry Fitzgerald and Alex Smith.
“They always tell me, ‘Hey, anything you’re not comfortable with, you just let us know and we won’t do that thing,’” Griffin said of the show’s producers. “My answer always back to them is, ‘Well, I won’t know if I’m uncomfortable with it if I don’t try.’”
While Griffin had what looked like a seamless assimilation into the broadcasting world, he had a difficult moment when using a racial slur on live television in discussing Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts. The clip quickly gained traction across the internet, and Griffin issued an apology on his Twitter account for using the pejorative language and claimed that he misspoke.
“I was shocked that it came out in the way that it did, and I immediately jumped on it and apologized because there’s no need to deny,” he said. “You messed up. You move forward, and I think that’s the easiest way to get over those types of things and to get back on your feet.”
The football season at both the college and professional level is undoubtedly a grind, and it requires a combination of dedication, passion and persistence few people possess. Robert Griffin III has garnered the reputation of being an “overpreparer,” often partaking in considerably more information than necessary to execute a broadcast. The information he consumes and conclusions he draws combined with his experience at both levels has cultivated him into a knowledgeable analyst who makes cogent, intelligible points on the air.
“I over-prepare for everything, and 70% of the information that I soak in going into a game or going into a broadcast for Monday Night Countdown, I don’t use because there’s just not enough air time,” Griffin III said. “There’s not enough opportunities to talk on it all.”
At the same time, he makes a concerted effort to make the most of his time with his family and separate himself from the field, engaging in activities including playing ping pong, going to the movies and supporting his children. He also embarks in charity work through his RG3 Foundation and strives to teach his daughters the importance of giving back. The mission of the nonprofit foundation is to discover and design programs for underprivileged youth, struggling military families and victims of domestic violence, and it has made a significant impact since it was launched in 2015.
“Trying to end food insecurity; making sure that our under-resourced youth have access to the things that they need just to survive – talking about food, clothes, books, the ability to learn [and] putting on these after-school programs,” Griffin elucidated in describing the organization’s mission. “We want to have an impact on our community. We mean that with everything in us and have shown that to be the true case of why we do this.”
Griffin’s wife, Grete, serves as the executive director of the foundation and also runs her own fitness business. Staying physically and mentally in shape is something they actively try to accomplish in their everyday lives, and lessons they are passing down to their daughters.
“I’m 33 years old right now, so if I want to continue to train every single day, I can do that for the next 10 years if I need to,” Griffin said. “Not taking hits and being physically fit is also a good thing for your own health, which is something me and my wife are extremely passionate about.”
Although his experience is in playing football and working in sports media, Robert Griffin III does not believe in limiting himself and would consider exploring opportunities outside of sports and entertainment. He wants to become the best broadcaster possible no matter where he is working in the industry and continue finding new ways to be distinctive en masse.
“We’re storytellers,” he said. “We’re here to break down things [and] to tell people a story the right way; things that people are interested in, and that expands across all media levels. We’re not closing the door on anything from that standpoint.”
While he was playing in the NFL, Griffin dealt with a variety of injuries that ultimately kept him off the football field and made it difficult to display his talents. Ranging from an ACL tear, shoulder scapula fracture and hairline fracture in his right thumb, staying healthy was a challenge for him over the time he played in the NFL.
Through surgeries and rehabilitation, he learned how to face and overcome these challenges. It has shaped him into the broadcaster and person he is today as he looks to set a positive example to aspiring football players and broadcasters everywhere.
“The eight-year career that I was able to have thus far didn’t come without roadblocks in the way [and] didn’t come without adversity. Learn from the adversity that you go through and learn from all the things and the lessons that you have that sports teaches you, and then go be able to present that to the masses.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Sports Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @derekfutterman.
BSM Writers
Pac-12 Pushing Enhanced Access, Deion Sanders Reeks of Desperation
What good is enhanced access for TV broadcasts or the star power of Coach Prime if those game telecasts aren’t seen?
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.