Appalled Rutgers players agree to meet with Imus

REBECCA SANTANA, AP, Trentonian.com, April 11, 2007

PISCATAWAY -- The Rutgers University women’s basketball team blasted radio host Don Imus yesterday for making "sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable and abominable" but agreed to meet with the embattled radio host.

Starting Monday, Imus will be suspended for two weeks for calling the Rutgers players "nappy-headed hos."

Rutgers players, who had not spoken publicly until yesterday, called his comments insensitive and hurtful.  However, they said they were reserving judgment on whether he should be fired until after they meet with Imus.

Calls for Imus’ dismissal have been growing since he made the remarks about the team April 4, a day after the team lost the national championship game to Tennessee.  The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Imus’ comments contribute to "a climate of degradation" and stem from a lack of blacks as program hosts.

Rutgers’ players and head coach C. Vivian Stringer, along with several players, said Imus’ comments took the luster off an incredible season.  It was the first time the team reached the national title game.

"The Rutgers university women’s basketball team has made history," said Essence Carson, a junior forward.  "We haven’t done anything to deserve this controversy, and yet it has taken a toll on us mentally and physically."

Heather Zurich, a sophomore forward, said the team’s "moment was taken away" by Imus.

"This week and last, we should have celebrating our accomplishments the past season," she said.  "All of our accomplishments were lost ... we were stripped of this moment by the degrading comments made by Mr. Imus."

Rutgers’ athletic director, Robert E. Mulcahy III, thought a meeting with Imus would offer the team’s players a chance to listen to him and hear what he has to say.  Several players said they wanted to ask the host why he would make such thoughtless statements.

"We all agreed the meeting with Mr. Imus will help," Carson said.  "We do hope to get something accomplished during this meeting."

Players did not say when or where they’d meet with Imus.  Yesterday, Dr. DeForest B. Soaries Jr., senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, told MSNBC-TV he would moderate the meeting.

Imus started the firestorm after the Rutgers team, which includes eight black women, lost the championship game.  He was speaking with producer Bernard McGuirk and said "that’s some rough girls from Rutgers.  Man, they got tattoos ..."

"Some hardcore hos," McGuirk said.

"That’s some nappy-headed hos there, I’m going to tell you that," Imus said.

Imus’ comments about the Rutgers players struck a chord, in part, because it was aimed at a group of young women enjoying athletic success.

"Unless they’ve given ‘ho’ a whole new definition, that’s not what I am," said sophomore center Kia Vaughn, from the Bronx, N.Y.

Imus, who has made a career of cranky insults in the morning, was fighting for his job following the joke that by his own admission went "way too far."

While acknowledging the severity of his mistake, Imus said he just hadn’t been thinking when he made the comments.  He also said that those who called for his firing without knowing him, his philanthropic work, or what his show was about would be making an "ill-informed" choice.

Stringer said her players "are the best this nation has to offer ... young ladies of class, distinction.  They are articulate, they are gifted.  They are God’s representatives in every sense of the word."

She said it’s not about the players "as black or nappy-headed.  It’s about us as a people.  When there is not equality for all, or when there has been denied equality for one, there has been denied equality for all."

In Washington, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was asked if President Bush thought Imus’ punishment was strong enough.

"The president believed that the apology was the absolute right thing to do," Perino said yesterday.  "And beyond that, I think that his employer is going to have to make a decision about any action that they take based on it."

Imus’s radio show originates from WFAN in New York City and is syndicated nationally by Westwood One, both of which are managed by CBS.

"What I did was make a stupid, idiotic mistake in a comedy context," Imus said on his show yesterday morning, the final week before his suspension starts.

The racially charged-remarks from Imus follow a string of recent racial rants by other celebrities, including the actors Michael Richards and Mel Gibson incidents.

Imus isn’t the most popular radio talk-show host -- the trade publication Talkers ranks him the 14th-most influential -- but his audience is heavy on the political and media elite that advertisers pay a premium to reach.

Imus could be in real danger if the outcry causes advertisers to shy away from him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio.

The National Organization for Women and the National Association of Black Journalists is also are seeking Imus’ dismissal.

The Rev. Al Sharpton also has also called for Imus to be fired, saying his two-week suspension was "not nearly enough" and was "too little, too late."  If he’s not fired, Sharpton said presidential candidates and other politicians should also refrain from going on Imus’ show in the future.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, whose presidential candidacy has been backed by Imus on the air, has said he’ll still appear on Imus’ program.

"He has apologized," McCain said.  "I’m a great believer in redemption."

New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who spoke to Rutgers players Monday, said he strongly condemned Imus’ words but that only the players could decide if the apology was enough.

While Imus has used his show before to spread insults around -- once calling Colin Powell a "weasel" and another time referring to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as a "fat sissy" -- his comments about the Rutgers women crossed the line, coach Stringer said.

"It is more than the Rutgers women’s basketball team," Stringer said.  "It is all women’s athletes.  It is all women."

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Associated Press writer David Bauder in New York City contributed to this report.