A lot of people have opinions on Ben Johnson’s language. Some of those people should be careful about throwing stones.
Now that Vitale has weighed in on Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson, it’s worth pointing out that he has had other opinions on football before, such as when he compared college students taking money for their families to prostitution. This was not in private. This was Vitale, on a public platform, deliberately trying to shame young athletes.
However, Vitale’s willingness to resort to vulgarity as long as he is punching down goes deeper than that. Consider this article from 1992, which records the time that the basketball personality reacted to a play by Ohio State’s Lawrence Funderburke. Per the story, “Vitale went on to call Funderburke a ‘cheap-shot mother f—–.’” Vitale was spared from this segment airing broadly because ESPN went to a commercial, but it was broadcast to dish audiences. This was not a private locker room speech about one team of grown men referencing another team of grown men. This was a 50-something professional sports commentator using that language to describe a college student who was twenty-one.
Vitale apologized for both incidents eventually, but only after he was called out. Only after he used his own platform to attack others and got criticized for it. Now he has attacked Ben Johnson for using the same type of language he himself has wielded in the past, but Johnson is using that language to frame a rivalry between professional adults—not singling out individual young men.
Readers can decide whose approach is truly classless.
Category: General Sports
