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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 13, 1997)
Unforgiving public Fame can’t shield careless sportscasters BARB CHURCHILL is a graduate student in wood winds performance and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist. Wouldn’t it be nice if the only important sports stories occurred on the field? It was interesting, if old fash ioned, when you could turn on the TV and watch Michael Jordan or Brett Favre lead their respective teams to victory without hearing about their latest shoe contract or prescription pain-reliever overdose. Unfortunately, that was in the good old days. Now, many sports stories are happening off the field, and are hap pening to, of all people, the sports casters. Sportscasters are now mak ing as much news as the athletes they cover. The most recent and celebrated example of this concerns former NBC announcer Marv Albert, whose signature “Yes!” call defined NBA play-calling. Albert is an extremely knowledgeable and artic ulate sports personality, formerly the premiere announcer for the “NBA on NBC.” Albert has announced many sporting events, including NBA basketball, football, hockey and baseball games. Albert was a guest on David Letterman’s show more than 100 times, showing sports blooper reels and giving his expert sports opinion whenever Letterman asked. However, Albert’s morals would make an alley-cat cringe. He was on trial for forcible sodomy and assault in Virginia. The facts of this story were sordid. On Feb. 12, 1997, Albert bit a 42-year old woman between 18 to 20 times on her back after the woman refused to recruit another man for a three some. (Note: Albert was engaged to someone else at the time.) Then, Albert forced the woman to perform oral sex, and she bit him. One of the bite marks broke the skin. A foren sics expert testified that DNA from semen taken from the woman’s lip, chest, and underwear was Albert’s. The evidence looked grim indeed. Albert’s lawyer stated that Albert had a 10-year sexual relationship with this woman, and that Albert’s sexual habits had not changed. In other words (according to Albert’s lawyer), this woman knew what Albert wanted when she went to his hotel room on Feb. 12. Albert’s lawyers were trying to make this 10 year relationship out to be a serious, long-standing sexual relationship (whkmprobably was news to Albejtjs fiancee). However, a surprise witness for the prosecution testified that Albert bit her during a similar incident in a Dallas hotel room three years ago. This witness proved the prosecu tion’s point: Albert is into violent, kinky and possibly bisexual sex with multiple partners. Perhaps trying to cut off more damaging testimony, Albert pled guilty to the assault charge. No one will ever know whether the sodomy was consensual or not, as the charge was dropped because of the plea bargain. The only person who has done something similarly vile in recent memory is former CBS sports announcer Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder. Snyder was banished from his job as oddsmaker after he made a racial slur. He was never able to rehabilitate his image after that. Albert most likely faces similar treatment, as he clearly violated audience taboos just as Snyder did. Even though the American pub lic is remarkably forgiving of its sports stars (Dennis Rodman comes to mind), it is noticeably less friend ly with its announcers. Why Albert lied, telling NBC that he was innocent of all charges, will never be known. NBC stuck with Albert, believing Albert when he said that the allegations had “no basis in fact.” Albert defiantly vio lated the “morals clause” that is inserted into standard TV-broadcast ing contracts, and expected to keep his job based on his popularity. However, by lying, Albert made NBC look bad. It’s possible that their ratings would have gone down, as fundamentalists of all stripes refused to watch Albert’s broadcasts on the basis that Albert is a low-life degenerate. Albert embarrassed NBC, and made the word “sports caster” synonymous with “scum bag.” Therefore, he was fired. The oddest thing about this inci dent, in retrospect, is that Albert had very few questions put to him by the mainstream media. Although this was a big story, Albert was not fea tured on “Nightline” or on any other “legitimate”'(i.e., non-“Hard Copy”) TV news program. Are the mainstream media pro tecting their own? If sports stars such as Jordan or Steve Young did acts like Albert’s, they would have been hounded by the media, mainly because it would be such a departure from their clean-cut images. Why should Albert be shielded from scrutiny just because he is a TV broadcaster? Perhaps the best question is this: Why did Albert allow this case to go to trial in the first place, since the allegations were so damaging? Was Albert truly that desperate to hang " on to his job for a few more months? Did Albert really think that if Dennis Rodman’s antics were acceptable to the American public, his would be also? Or was Albert simply that clueless, betting on a streak of “cultural libertarianism” that we Americans just don’t pos sess? It seems obvious that Albert badly misjudged the American pub lic. America is not ready for a sportscaster who is more randy than the sports stars whom he covers. Therefore, Albert has lo.st his job*, and can use the extra time that he now has to perform any unusual sexual act that he requires. That is, if he can find anyone who can keep from laughing at him. The one that got a Drunken fun spells disaster for e j A vj «-j -3nJ v.> V- , T > • ••• • • ‘ . ~ i ilV -- - .'i; . t ■ i mr b®:« TODD MUNSON is a junior broadcasting major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. The schedule of classes for the spring semester hits the stands today. It’s always kind of a weird thing, taking a break from studying for your midterms to plan out next semester’s classes. By the looks of this semester, I wish NRoll had an extra transaction for morons like myself — the do-over button. One push oi a button and you could sign up for the same classes next semes ter in anticipation of your impend ing failure. Scanning the schedule of class es, you can see many courses that have come to be known as blow-off classes. Learn about Foghat in The History of Rock-n-Roll, learn to sleep in Relaxation Techniques, pump it up in Strength Training. With a course load like this, even Jeff Spicoli could get a 4.0. Then there’s Angling. For those uncivilized folks who don’t know, that’s the proper name for fishin’. You can find it under Outdoor Education or something like that. Such an innocent sounding class. Learn the skills needed to catch anything from blue gill to walleye, bait hooks, make your lure dance the tango and tie knots. Important life skills. And what’s a class without a comprehensive final exam that puts everything you learn to the test? The Angling final was a weekend fish ing trip. Sounds so innocent I thought I could breeze though it with one eye open and earn a much deserved P. I was as wrong as the conception of Newt Gingrich. So, sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful field trip. A fishin’ story, if you will. Although the coming anecdote is quite self-deprecating, I’m only doing this as fair warning to those of you who think taking a class in fish ing is a way to an easy credit hour. The itinerary for the trip was to meet at the campus recreation center at some ungodly early hour, travel to the far reaches of Republican City — home of the scenic Harlan County Reservoir — and fish our brains out. Loaded up, we were forced to wait for Justin. (The names mentioned have been in no way changed in honor of the guilty parties.) After about half an hour, he showed up about twelve sheets to the wind, coming straight from a party, bringing only his pole, a tack le box and the shirt on his back. In the van, he took a seat next to me. When I asked about his lack of luggage, he said if he didn’t bring it, it must not have been important. Five minutes into the journey, everyone on the bus was out like a light. It was kind of a weird thing. 1 Stuck in a van, a dozen total strangers who normally wouldn’t speak to each other were now using each other as pillows. Four hours later, we arrived at the lake. It was a glorious Nebraska spring morning. Cloudy skies, huge white-capped waves, a howling wind from the north, and a tempera ture in the upper 30s. Van unloaded, the class headed down to the shore to put a hurt on the Harlan fish pop ulation. An hour passed without a single bite. Justin was passed out on the sand, his lure not even in the water. James, my pillow during the ride, leaned over, teeth chattering, and said, “Maybe we should ask Mr. Kringle if we can take out the john boat and warm our selves up.” He then opened his tack le box and revealed a huge bottle of Hot Damn 100. “Let me wake Justin up,” I replied. The three of us hit the water in the smai 1 numan-powerea craft. A good distance from shore, I made the observation that a sticker said the boat’s weight limit was 300 pounds; our calculations told us that we had exceeded that limit by more than 150 pounds. James saw no worry and kept rowing until we reached a little, secluded cove. We fished a little. We drank a lit tle. We fished a little less. We drank a lot more. By noon we were suffi ciently inebriated and decided it was time to head back. While we were in the cove, the wind picked up and the water was now churning worse that Justin’s stomach. With each stroke, water came crashing in and was soon past our ankles. A drunken panic set in. I saw a little plug in the side of the boat and thinking the water could run out the plug, I yanked it out. Boy was I stupid. Before I could put it back, the water was up to our knees and our tackle boxes floated about. Trying to make amends, I dumped out my tackle box, which happened to contain my history book, and tried to bail water. It was no use. In about 10 more feet, the boat took a visit to Davy Jones’ locker. Our stuff was lost for good. James tried valiantly to recover his dad’s fishing pole but it was no use. The frigid water had a sobering effect on me, and five years of life guard training kicked in. I rounded up the lifejackets, forced those guys to put them on, and we began the 500-yard swim to the nearest shore. Making it to shore, we began the hike back to the campsite. The instructor took one look at us and instantly knew what happened. I think it was our blue skin that tipped him off. After we told our epic story, minus the Hot Damn 100, he asked, “Don’t you boys know how to add? You’re an embarrassment to the state of Nebraska.” After the numbness went away, James and I accompanied Justin to the local Laundromat to dry his only clothes. Sitting there in borrowed underwear, Justin made the observa tion (and the moral uf the story) that if you can’t add nor control your substance abuse, don’t take fishing, and you might as well move to Oklahoma. In reality, he made the move to a place where you must not need good seamanship either. He joined the Navy.
