Rutgers A.D. Provides Insight
Inside the Imus uproar
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
BY MIKE FRASSINELLI, Star-Ledger Staff
Three words.
That was all it took to set off a chain reaction of events that left a women's basketball team scarred, a radio icon fired and New Jersey's governor hospitalized.
Rutgers University athletic director Robert Mulcahy, addressing a Warren County prep school last night, covered those points and said he hoped the end result of last month's Don Imus controversy would be a greater sensitivity.
"What it really does is call attention to something that I have talked an awful lot about in the last few years, and that is the lack of civility in our society," Mulcahy told students at Blair Academy in Blairstown.
"It's how we talk to one another. It's how quickly we can raise our voice and how quickly we come to judgment on somebody else. It doesn't bode well," he said. "And you as young people, who will be the leaders of our society in the future, have the opportunity to change how we talk to one another and how we do these things."
Mulcahy gave students and faculty at the West Jersey elite prep school a behind-the-scenes peek at the flap caused last month when Imus on his popular morning radio show called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos."
Imus was later fired and Gov. Jon Corzine sustained serious injuries April 12 during an accident on his way to broker a meeting at the governor's mansion between Imus and the basketball team.
Mulcahy said he got wind of the controversy on April 5 as Rutgers celebrated a dream season in which the team was runner-up for the national championship that week in Cleveland.
Two nights later, he returned home to find 10 voice mails on his answering machine, including two from New York sports talk radio host Mike Francesa and one from Imus.
"Imus said that he wanted to meet with the team so that they could understand what he was about and that he really didn't mean to hurt anybody," Mulcahy recalled.
"But what I said to Imus on the phone that night was, 'Don, you have got to understand that these young women, some of them come from very difficult neighborhoods. And while they are heroes in their neighborhood, many of the people are jealous because they made it out. And when they go home, those adjectives that you threw at them will be used against them,' Mulcahy said.
"He never thought of it that way. And most people don't think of it that way."
Mulcahy said he told Imus that he would have to ask the women on the team whether they wanted to meet with the radio star.
On Easter Sunday, Mulcahy called Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer and Corzine and asked for a team meeting the next day.
"I wanted the governor to come so that they would understand that from the highest levels of the state these young women were supported," Mulcahy said. "Because they were hurt, and they were hurt very deeply. The governor came. He was terrific. He came in the back way and went out the back way, and all the press was in the front."
Mulcahy said the women decided it wasn't their role to call for the resignation of Imus. Their role was to call attention to their feelings of hurt.
The women of Rutgers basketball were praised internationally for their composure during the week of controversy.
"Before the meeting, what the young women said to me is, they wanted to look in his eyes and ask him why," Mulcahy remembered. "Why he would say this. And they wanted an opportunity for him to understand that they were real people."
News Headlines
On May 8, as part of the Society of Skeptics program, Robert Mulcahy, former CEO of the New Jersey Sports Authority and current director of athletics at Rutgers University, spoke to Blair students and other members of the extended Blair community in Armstrong-Hipkins Center for the Arts concerning the recent Rutgers women’s basketball team/Don Imus controversy and other issues facing college athletics today.