-By Warner Todd Huston
For some unknown reason ESPN has issued a formal apology to Katherine Webb, girlfriend of Alabama QB A.J. McCarron, for sportscaster Brent Musburger’s on-air ogling of the beauty during Alabama’s BCS Championship Game on Monday night.
In a statement on TwitLonger, ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys wrote: “Have been asked on focus on @_KatherineWebb in BCS: We always try to capture interesting storylines and the relationship between an Auburn grad who is Miss Alabama and the current Alabama quarterback certainly met that test. However, we apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that.”
During the broadcast of the game on Monday, TV cameramen focused McCarron’s girlfriend and Musburger began riffing on how lucky quarterbacks were for their beautiful women.
“If you’re a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with Pop.” Musburger said during the broadcast.
Musburger was attacked by many after the broadcast, but others have come to his support.
Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News was one of Musburger’s supporters. “All Musburger did was caption what he saw. In doing so, he mirrored what the audience of yahoos salivating at home were thinking too,” he said on Tuesday.
For her part, Webb defended Musburger saying he was not being “creepy” but was only being complimentary. Why ESPN felt the need to go over the top with this gutless apology when even the object of the attention wasn’t even offended is anyone’s guess.
After the incident, Webb, who was crowned Miss Alabama last year, gained thousands of new Twitter followers going from some 2,000 followers to over 100,000 overnight.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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