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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsESPN, Citing Safety, Says Asian-American Robert Lee Wont Broadcast Virginia Football Game
ESPN has removed an announcer from its broadcast of the University of Virginias first football game next month because he has the same name as a Confederate general memorialized in statues that are being taken down across the country.
The network announced late Tuesday that the announcer, Robert Lee, a part-time employee who calls about a dozen college football and basketball games a year for ESPN, would no longer participate in the broadcast of the Sept. 2 game in Charlottesville, Va., which became the center of violent clashes this month during a white supremacist gathering.
White nationalists and neo-Nazis flooded into Charlottesville, marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches, to protest the citys plan to remove a statue of the Confederacys top general, Robert E. Lee.
After the violence in Charlottesville, which left one person dead, ESPN executives and Mr. Lee decided that for his safety it would be best to have him to work on a different game that Saturday, a network spokesman said.
We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name, ESPN said in a statement. In that moment it felt right to all parties. Its a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/23/business/media/robert-lee-university-virginia-charlottesville.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur
dalton99a
(81,656 posts)PdxSean
(574 posts)Dumb, da dumb dumb. Dumb, da dumb, dumb, dummmb.
torius
(1,652 posts)because he'd have kicked their asses.
NNadir
(33,580 posts)Purveyor
(29,876 posts)jcmaine72
(1,773 posts)I don't know what the problem is here. It sounds like Mr. Lee himself understands what the situation is and doesn't have any objections. If anything, it's Trump and his legion of ignorant, white supremacist, slavery-nostalgic, Nazi trash supporters people should be angry with here, and not ESPN for taking moral high road.
central scrutinizer
(11,665 posts)are the white supremacists stupid enough to believe this has anything to do with the Confederacy? That Mr. Lee's parents are prescient commies who wanted to mock their "heritage" by choosing the uncommon name Robert for their kid many years before the current controversy?
ProfessorGAC
(65,319 posts)He is not, however, being fired. They just moved him to a different game. I understand their point, (and his), but he can't help that that's his name.
Orrex
(63,247 posts)Wait. What?