I love college football. I live in the south where I’m not alone in my obsession. My beloved Georgia Bulldogs belong to the dominating Southeastern Conference and many of their games are nationally televised and sometimes on CBS sports where we must endure the rantings of some of my least favorite announcers.
My family happily settles in our basement with the Dawgs for afternoons or evenings of fun. The last two Saturdays in the basement we’ve been subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, as both the UGA games were telecast on CBS Sports. Verne Lundquist and Gary Danielson were uninvited guests in our basement and I want them to know they are no longer welcome.
We have, for years, endured Verne and Gary’s passionate sonnets of love for whomever Georgia was playing as par for the course. Despite having a stable and winning coach with morals and a stellar reputation in college football, Mark Richt and the University of Georgia Bulldogs are the low man on the respect totem pole. The camera rarely swings in Richt’s direction, for instead of finding him in the throws of a temper tantrum or verbally berating an official, Richt is often seen praying on the sidelines or calmly communicating with someone in the booth.
But last weekend during the LSU game…Verne did more than just his usual sucking up to Georgia’s opposing team. He had the audacity to refer to an LSU player’s 2010 arrest and guilty plea of sexual battery as an “unfortunate incident.”
In an attempt to add more hype to an already big matchup, Verne and Gary brought up the player’s brush with the law and subsequent dismissal from UGA. From the warm reception the LSU player received from the Georgia coaching staff and his former teammates, the young man obviously left on good terms and his on the field behavior was beyond reproach. But after listening to Verne champion this player’s prowess and grit in fighting back from unbeatable odds (of his own doing), I could hardly believe by the end of the game he’d characterize a sexual battery charge as if it were something that happened to him and he was the victim.
As the mother of both a son and a daughter who are in no way perfect, I can look at this situation from both sides. The young man screwed up, as teenaged boys are apt to do. He pled guilty, he faced the consequences, he moved on, and has made a nice collegiate career for himself. This is a rare case where someone is afforded the chance to leave the past in the past and make something of himself despite his mistakes.
I can’t speak for the girl in the “incident” because fortunately her identity has remained anonymous and I hope it always does. I don’t know the ins and outs of the case, nor do I want to, but if the girl in the case were my daughter, I would have charged the television if a seventy-three year old play-by-play announcer belittled my daughter’s sexual battery as an “unfortunate incident.”
The only thing unfortunate about the incident, Verne, is that anyone who tunes in to watch a good football game is subjected to your very loose interpretation of the game of football and your even looser interpretation on the harsh realities of life. Go on, Verne, bring up the player’s past and then gloss over the arrest as if it means nothing. Mention the incident to spark interest in the game and espouse his triumphant return while his victim (because that’s what she was, Verne, she was an innocent victim) won’t ever get the same consideration—certainly not by you.
But, hey, what do I know? I’m only a woman and Bulldog fan to boot.
About Christy Hayes
Christy Hayes lives outside Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, two children, and two dogs. She has a journalism degree from the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!). She’s a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Women’s Fiction Chapter of Romance Writers of America. Christy has been writing seriously since 2004 and made the decision to indie publish in 2011. When not working on her next novel, Christy can be found running through her neighborhood or at one of her kids sporting events.
