Yeah, “I’m not a sexist, but women just obviously don’t know anything about sports.” Good one. :rolleyes:
But then this week he made a backhanded explanation for the comment, which understandbly rose quite a stir. He was supposedly trying to explain himself, but he wound up just digging himself in even deeper.
I just love the fact that, both this week and last week, he felt the need to preface his comments with an offhand, “I’m not a sexist, but…” Yeah. That’s an awfully big but there, you senile fucker.
Rooney seems to feel the need to state for the world that he’s not a sexist. You know how he could prove it? Here’s a couple hints: Don’t make broad, negative generalizations about women. Don’t try to comparmentalize women into certain occupations. Don’t assume that women can’t know just as much (ore more) about sports as men know. And here’s the big one, listen close… listening? DON’T FUCKING MAKE BLATANTLY SEXIST STATEMENTS WHEN THE FUCKING CAMERA IS POITNING AT YOU!
When you say you’re not a sexist, and then you make a sexist statement, then all your words become meaningless, you stupid ass. My advice at this point? Just shut the fuck up. Your three minutes of complaining every week has officially crossed the line from pointlessly annoying to downright self-destructive. Quit while you’re ahead, and shut your fat, stupid mouth.
IIRC, his justification was that the women had never played football, whereas most of the male sportcasters and sideline reporters have.
Personally, I suspect the rationale for putting those female reporters on the sideline is more sexist than anything Rooney said. For one thing, the sideline reporter doesn’t do much at all except stand there and briefly report facts on injuries, so perhaps they’re chosen for attractiveness to appeal to the largely male audience. Also, the idea might be that getting sideline interviews will be easier with a pretty girl, one who players might be more willing to talk to. If sideline reporting was assigned by merit and knowledge of football, many of the women on the sidelines would look more like Linda Cohn, they wouldn’t all be supersexy knockouts.
Myself, I just think sideline reporters should be eliminated entirely, irrespective of gender, as they contribute very little to the broadcast. They could easily just send word of injury updates to the booth.
The only gender-related issue that still bothers me about football is the women reporters allowed into the locker room. Yeah, those guys are professionals, but they’re still guys. Yeah, those ladies are professionals, but they’re still ladies. If you want to get a lockerroom interview (and I’d be just fine with disallowing them entirely), then send a guy in there. Respect people’s privacies a little. They wouldn’t let men into the lockerroom of a girl’s sports team (they generally don’t let anyone into lockerrooms of girls’ sports teams), so have a little respect the other way.
And lots of ex-players make some of the worst sports casters out there. Chris Collinsworth comes immediately to mind. Specific to sideline reporters, Eric Dickerson was terrible on MNF last year.
That’s why they go to journalism school, Rex, to learn how to report on the relevant issues. Understanding sports takes specialized knowledge but anyone who works at it can do it, including women. You have a point regarding the eye candy factor (hello Melissa!) but many of the female sideline reporters are very good regardless of their looks. Bonnie Bernstein is one who comes to mind as a good sideline reporter. And really, is anyone surprised that they hired attractive people who are going to be on camera? OK, I hear you saying, what about John Madden, oneo fhte ugliest SOBs in football? Two mitigating factors; He’s one of the best football commentators ever (or at least was, he’s lost a bit of his game) and the play by play guys are rarely on screen compared to the sideline reporters.
Raygun, I wasn’t saying categorically that all former players would be better or worse than all J-School types at sideline reporting, merely that when you describe it in this context it isn’t quite as sexist as it first appears.
However, I’m not sure I agree with you about journalist school grads. Here at University of Missouri, we have a top 5 J-School, and I don’t think too highly of the abilities of the grads from here whose work I have seen. J-School teaches students to see their job with a lot of ridiculously dispropotionate reverence about the function they perform in society. Also, J-Schools tend to teach students to be a jack of all trades, and thus a master of none. I’d just as soon journalists got English degrees and learned how to write, picking up the tricks of the trade on the job through internships. A friend of mine is doing this with much success, writing for music magazines.
I do think that there are some things about football that people who didn’t play it don’t understand. Friends of mine who did play tend to show an understanding not just of X’s and O’s, but of the outlook of a team, the lifestyle of being an athlete, the intangibles. There are surely some stinkers from the ranks of former players, but I think that former players and coaches have the capacity to understand the sport in ways that others never can who merely look from the outside in.
To give an example with the gender roles reversed, look at the coverage of women’s NCAA basketball. The people calling the game may be guys often as not, but the commentators they go to at halftime to dissect the game are all women who played or coached at the collegiate level. They have the inside knowledge about the nuances of the sport.
I think Andy Rooney is slowly turning into a Jerry Falwell of his group. People listen to him for the politically incorrect sound bites and then watch for the apology.
Well, that and they leach valuable media resources away to trivial bread-and-circuses entertainment functions as if they were actual current events of any significance.
Are you ducking and running because you’re afraid you ticked off some rabid sports fans, or because you consider these blow-dried idiots to be valuable media resources?
Male players could ban everyone from their locker room and do their interviews elsewhere. Since they don’t, they are legally required to let the women in too. Female sports teams avoid having to let men in their locker rooms by doing their interviews outside it.
