CzabanA pair of hosts on ESPN Radio’s Washington affiliate have been suspended for at least two days after a segment last week in which they said some truly horrible things about a 50-year-old basketball player from California.
On Thursday, Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin, who host the station’s The Sports Reporters program that airs at 4 p.m. weekdays, read an excerpt from a USA Today profile of Gabrielle Ludwig, a student at Mission College, a two-year school in Santa Clara, Calif. Among the details Czaban, Pollin and their guest, Chris Knoche, focused on is that Ludwig, who plays for Mission, is 6-feet-6-inches tall. But more important to this story is that she was born Robert Ludwig, who as a teenager played basketball for Nassau Community College in Garden City, N.Y.
Apparently, the three radio bozos were aghast that Ludwig, who transitioned in 2007, plays for a community college basketball team that also includes on its roster of mostly 18-to-20-year-olds a player who stands under five feet tall and another who is deaf. But, USA Today reports, Ludwig is eligible to play for Mission as an enrolled student going for 12 credits.
But Czaban, Pollin and Knoche decided they needed to share with the world just how uncomfortable and asshole-y they are, and proceeded to go off on Ludwig’s appearance and life.
“Whatever you’ve got to do to scratch that inner itch and quell those inner demons, that’s fine,” Czaban said. “But don’t go playing sports then. And don’t go playing sports saying, ‘but I’ve go the rights of everyone else.’ ”
When Czaban introduced the story, either Pollin or Rhodes chimed in with an Austin Powers imitation: “That’s a man, baby!”
The jerks continued to pile on, further critiquing Ludwig’s physical appearance, including her muscled biceps that are painted with tattoos. “That could be a Russian chick,” Knoche said.
By the way, USA Today’s story, which was apparently noticed by a local radio show because it bears the byline of Eric Prisbell, formerly of The Washington Post, is a really great profile focusing on a subject that is sometimes difficult to frame. And even though a group of miked-up jackasses want to tear her down, Ludwig, by Prisbell’s account, has been embraced by her new teammates:
But to teammates, she has been more than that. Some say they have learned about life’s struggles from Ludwig. Standout guard Felicia Anderson considers Ludwig an inspiration not only because of her personal journey, one that opened Anderson’s eyes to a different group of people, but also because of her age. They say they are in awe that Ludwig used to routinely dunk as a man some 30 years ago. Ludwig also never shies away from poking fun at herself, and teammates never hesitate to join in.
Czaban and Pollin also decided they would have some pronoun difficulties; they joked about whether Ludwig should be referred to as “he” or “she”—uh, it’s pretty clear from reading the USA Today article—and Czaban settled on this stinker: “I think ‘it’ is the politically correct term.”
For future reference, Steve, “it” is not correct.
Anyway, Czaban and Pollin were back on the air Friday and yesterday, but they have been suspended for today and tomorrow, the Post reports. Chuck Sapienza, the vice president of programming for Red Zebra Media, the Dan Snyder-backed company that owns ESPN 980, said in a prepared statement that Czaban and Pollin would be reprimanded. (Sapienza did not return a phone call from DCist.)
Jason Terry, a spokesman for the D.C. Trans Coalition, says ESPN 980 should go a step further and cancel Czaban and Pollin outright.
“It’s pretty simple, really,” Terry says. “The language was egregious and unacceptable. You don’t just get to walk all over the human rights of a group of people and keep your job.”
Listen:
