Rooney slams women sideline reporters

Gee...I wonder if this means he doesn't like Jill Arrington??




CBS' Rooney angers women with remarks

By Andrew Gross, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

There's a lengthy list of groups CBS' Andy Rooney has offended over the years with his comments. Now, it's women who are taking issue with him after the 60 Minutes commentator said female sideline reporters had no business making comments about football games.

"The only thing that really bugs me about television's coverage is those damn women they have down on the sidelines who don't know what the hell they're talking about," Rooney said Friday on MSG Network's The Boomer Esiason Show. "I mean, I'm not a sexist person, but a woman has no business being down there trying to make some comment about a football game."

Monday Night Football sideline reporter Melissa Stark declined to comment and CBS would not make its prominent female sportscasters available for interviews. MSG also declined comment and Esiason, who works for both CBS and MSG, was not available.

"The first thing that came into my mind is, does anybody take Andy Rooney seriously anyway?" said ESPN SportsCenter anchor Linda Cohn. "He doesn't take himself seriously half the time anyway. The second thing is, why is he stereotyping all women? God knows if he watches SportsCenter and has ever seen me. You have to judge each person separately. The third thing is, when was the last time he followed any of these sideline reporters around doing their job? Tell me the date and time, please."

Rooney, 83, has drawn protests in the past for his comments on homosexuals, evangelists, Native Americans, Greek-Americans and blacks. CBS suspended him in 1990 for a comment attributed to him in The Advocate, a gay magazine, in which he was quoted as saying, "Blacks have watered down their genes because the less intelligent ones are the ones who have the most children. They drop out of school, do drugs and get pregnant."

Rooney denied ever making the comment and the reporter did not tape the interview.

But reached yesterday by The Journal News at his New York office, Rooney did not back down from his comments made on Esiason's show. When asked if he was trying to be funny, Rooney responded that everybody laughed, "Everybody, apparently, but you."

He also said he was not being sarcastic. He said women sideline reporters are terrible, though he did clarify himself to add he does not like male sideline reporters either.

"Mr. Rooney has proven by his remarks he is indeed sexist," said National Council of Women's Organizations chairwoman Martha Burk, who is currently fighting to have Augusta National Golf Club admit its first female member. The club hosts The Masters, which is broadcast by CBS.

"It's beneath a major television personality to denigrate anybody who is trying to do their job and is doing it well," she said. "It surprises me that any public figure would have the insensitivity and/or bigoted position to come out publicly that way. Most folks who get in a position like Mr. Rooney is in — even if they feel that way privately — know it's not OK to say it publicly."

Few actually saw Rooney's segment on the half-hour show, which was aired Friday at 11 p.m. and re-aired Sunday at 10 a.m. Rooney's comments came at the end of a lengthy interview that touched on several sports subjects, though most of it was about football. Rooney is a longtime Giants season-ticket holder.

Don Hewitt, the executive producer of 60 Minutes, said yesterday he did not know of Rooney's comments and was not interested in hearing them firsthand.

"I'm not interested in the tape," Hewitt said. "I'm interested in what Andy says on this broadcast, which I edit. I'm not his father or his mother."

But Cohn was not the only female sportscaster to bristle at Rooney's comments.

"He really hasn't watched because I've known and loved football since I was 8," said ESPN's Suzy Kolber, who hosts the nuts-and-bolts Edge NFL Match-Up. "I host the most hard-core X's-and-O's show. I clearly know football and I deserve to be down there. He has a right to say what he wants, but from my standpoint, it's not a reflection of me. I clearly know what I'm talking about."

"It's a man who's almost 80 years old and of another generation," said Suzyn Waldman, who has broadcast Yankees games for YES and MSG and was the first voice heard when WFAN went on the air in 1987. "When a man of that generation says women shouldn't be someplace, you can't take it seriously as long as it doesn't stop anyone from getting a job. He's got a right to his opinion but he should know better. But he got his job on 60 Minutes because he's an old curmudgeon."

Still, Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said that Rooney's age and background are not excuses.

"Making a generalization like women aren't capable about talking about sports is very much like saying old, white men are all sexist — you can always find an example like Andy Rooney, but it doesn't prove the generalization," Gandy said. "Andy Rooney, like my 9-year-old says, is so last month. So a statement he makes isn't really worth a lot of our time."

NCWO and NOW said they don't plan on an active protest and neither does the Association for Women in Sports Media. But AWSM past president Paola Boivin is angry.

"It's unbelievably frustrating to me," said Boivin, a columnist for The Arizona Republic. "It really bugs me when damn TV commentators don't know what they're talking about. He's making a judgment about a gender and setting us back 20 years, if not further. It's deplorable to stereotype a whole section of society by saying they don't know sports."

Rooney, who has weathered every other storm, did not seem concerned that his latest remarks would cause a big flap.

"What are they going to do, fire me for the Boomer Esiason show? Pay me less money?" Rooney said.

 

That should have been Melissa Stark's comeback.



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