RU athletes want to put Imus' words behind them
The Nic of Time
Issue date: 4/13/07 Section: Sports
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It started slowly, but quickly turned the entire campus into something of a media circus.
Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy III said nationally syndicated radio host Don Imus "assassinated the character of 10 exceptionally talented and hardworking young women," in a statement earlier this week reacting the racist and sexist remarks Imus made on his radio show the morning after the Rutgers women's basketball team fell to Tennessee in the NCAA Championship.
The weekend is when people really began to take notice of the offensive comments, and by the time I had made it home Saturday to spend Easter with my family I was being asked by nearly everyone I know, "What exactly happened?" and "How do you feel about it?"
So I read them the transcription of Wednesday's conversation, and explained why I found it offensive.
Imus made character generalizations about 10 young women he did not know based on their looks, and the fact that eight of the 10 players he saw on the team were black.
Add on to that, by referring to Spike Lee's movie "School Daze," Imus reduced women's college athletics to a beauty pageant, and you can understand why so many people were outraged by the comments.
The comments took the dignity away from 10 of our fellow students, but what too many people failed to realize is what else it took from them: As Essence Carson put it, Don Imus had "stolen a moment of pure grace" from a team that had worked so hard to earn the right to enjoy it.
There were eight-hour practices while we were sitting at home over winter break, there were 15-minute "tap drills" that exhausted the players beyond what they would have ever imagined they could be.
And then, there were wins - a lot of them - as Rutgers turned their sluggish start into an NCAA Tournament run.
The hard work every day at practice turned into results, as Rutgers pulled upsets, won road games and shut down every offense it came up against on its way to the finals. When the players returned from Cleveland, they should have gotten high-fived as they walked down the street and applauded when they came into class, the same way Jeremy Ito and his football teammates did after that historic win over Louisville in November.
Athletic Director Robert Mulcahy III said nationally syndicated radio host Don Imus "assassinated the character of 10 exceptionally talented and hardworking young women," in a statement earlier this week reacting the racist and sexist remarks Imus made on his radio show the morning after the Rutgers women's basketball team fell to Tennessee in the NCAA Championship.
The weekend is when people really began to take notice of the offensive comments, and by the time I had made it home Saturday to spend Easter with my family I was being asked by nearly everyone I know, "What exactly happened?" and "How do you feel about it?"
So I read them the transcription of Wednesday's conversation, and explained why I found it offensive.
Imus made character generalizations about 10 young women he did not know based on their looks, and the fact that eight of the 10 players he saw on the team were black.
Add on to that, by referring to Spike Lee's movie "School Daze," Imus reduced women's college athletics to a beauty pageant, and you can understand why so many people were outraged by the comments.
The comments took the dignity away from 10 of our fellow students, but what too many people failed to realize is what else it took from them: As Essence Carson put it, Don Imus had "stolen a moment of pure grace" from a team that had worked so hard to earn the right to enjoy it.
There were eight-hour practices while we were sitting at home over winter break, there were 15-minute "tap drills" that exhausted the players beyond what they would have ever imagined they could be.
And then, there were wins - a lot of them - as Rutgers turned their sluggish start into an NCAA Tournament run.
The hard work every day at practice turned into results, as Rutgers pulled upsets, won road games and shut down every offense it came up against on its way to the finals. When the players returned from Cleveland, they should have gotten high-fived as they walked down the street and applauded when they came into class, the same way Jeremy Ito and his football teammates did after that historic win over Louisville in November.