National Championship Winners

The Rutgers women just completed their quest for the 2014 WNIT championship before 12,000 loud UTEP fans in El Paso.

Late-game heroine Tyler Scaife seconds after the final buzzer.

The 2014 WNIT trophy.

Congratulations to C. Vivian Stringer and all the players, all of whom should be back next year to face the Big Ten.

Rutgers Getting No Love From the CBSSports.com Preseason 126

The Rutgers Scarlet Knights do not even make it into the top half of the CBSSports.com preseason 126, coming in a number 77.

This makes game number one coming up on August 29th against Fresno State that much more important.  This meaningless preseason list (from the network that's still blacked out on my Time Warner system) has the Bulldogs ranked at number 26.

The Quote of the Day About the 2009 Scarlet Knights

"I actually think there's a decent chance, assuming that they get off to a good start, that Rutgers will be favored in every game it plays this year, including Big East games. A nine- or 10-win season is a real possibility for the Scarlet Knights."

--Brian Bennett, ESPN.com,
26 June 2009

That isn't the only love given to the Rutgers football team by a writer for a sports network's website this week. Dennis Dodd of CBS Sportsline picked our shining Knights in scarlet armor to win the Big East on Tuesday.

Not to put any pressure on them (not that any of the players read BeatVisitor.com) but the Cincinnati game this Labor Day is much bigger than the Fresno State game last Labor Day (and that was a big game). If they do beat the Bearcats, they will be on an eight-game winning streak and they definitely will be favored in every following game (unless they lose and break the string). 9 wins Brian?? 10 wins? Why not 12? Or 13 with a bowl win in January?

The Rutgers Women get the final victory of their magical 2007 season

The name of the man in the picture to the right will be forgotten before long. This is the first and last entry that will confront the readers of this blog with a picture of Don Imus, but the crawl at the bottom of the screen as he was uttering the slur heard round the world is telling. It shows something about the speed of news cycles; "..H RICHARDS SAID HE ONCE SNORTED..." of course refers to the big scandal that was breaking right before Imus created his own scandal, that Keith Richards said he had snorted his father's ashes in a cocaine mix. That story had legs about one inch long.

Now that CBS has followed NBC's lead by firing the original shock jock, he will quickly be replaced by another scandal on the front pages. But his story will be remembered and taught for years by those who work in the mass media. The uttering of casually sexist and racist "jokes" on the public airwaves (or basic cable) is now as clearly taboo as accidentally flashing a female breast during the Super Bowl halftime show or dropping an f-bomb. There's no gray area here. The next Imus who says something similar on the air will have his microphone pulled during the next commercial break.


And Don Imus will remember that it's not nice to fool with the Scarlet Knights. He started the conversation that ended his career by saying, "That's some rough girls from Rutgers." He had no idea. He had no idea that the real strength of these talented young women was in their intelligence and their quiet dignity. While others (including this blogger) immediately jumped into the fray, they showed how vile Don Imus's comments were just by being themselves (and making all of us with connections to Rutgers even prouder to be Scarlet Knights than we already were!).

Timeline of the past week in Rutgers women's basketball news

In case you hadn't heard, the Rutgers women's basketball team was attacked in racist and sexist terms on the day after they played in the National Championship game (and on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination) by a wrinkled and cowboy-hatted shock jockey on CBS radio (and formerly of MSNBC). Media Matters for America did a great job of bringing this outrage to light with video and transcripts on April 4, and now they've published an informative timeline of the past week's events that runs from the 4th up until last night's action by MSNBC.

They also provide this important CBS Radio contact info:

• Karen L. Mateo Vice President, Communications (212) 846-7638
• Whitney Pray Communications Coordinator (212) 846-3906
• Dana McClintock Senior Vice President, CBS Communications Group (212) 975-1077

You can also write to fanmail@wfan.com ; put in a snappy subject line ("Fire Imus" is short and to the point) and please mention why you feel that way, and if you're writing because of a personal connection to Rutgers.
I'm also writing a thank you note to viewerservices@msnbc.com

MSNBC does the right thing (for the obvious reason); all pressure now shifts to CBS

ALL ABOUT THE MONEY

It may turn out to seem like a Pyrrhic victory when some right-wing pressure group leans on sponsors to get rid of something we like on the radio (though we only listen to NPR, which doesn't have sponsors), but for now it's just a victory. It was for the money (or fear of losing it) that major American corporations, afraid of being tarred as sponsors of racism, caused another major American corporation, NBC Universal (a subsidiary of General Electric), to pull the plug on the cameras this evening.

It would have been nice if NBC has made the decision immediately, a week ago, for less mercenary reasons, but it still feels good to know that this insult against the Scarlet Knights, women, and African Americans, has finally been appropriately addressed.The online announcement included the key lines here:

The network’s decision came after a growing list of sponsors — including American Express Co., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Corp. — said they were pulling ads from Imus’ show for the indefinite future.

But it did not end calls for Imus to be fired from the radio portion of his program. The show originates from WFAN-AM in New York City and is syndicated nationally by Westwood One, both of which are managed by CBS Corp. For its part, CBS has not announced plans to discontinue the show.

If the sponsors don't get to WFAN, then the pressure has to be put on athletes to follow Cal Ripken's example and refuse to deal with Imus or his station. I don't think it will take even that much though. CBS will not want to look more racist than NBC. It's as simple as that, or it should be.

OBAMA & HILLARY ARE TIED

Later in the MSNBC announcement was this bit about Barack Obama's statement today on Imus and the young women of Rutgers:

Before the announcement was made, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) had appeared on the MSNBC program "Hardball," where host David Gregory asked the senator and presidential candidate if he thought Imus should be fired.

"I don't think MSNBC should be carrying the kinds of hateful remarks that Imus uttered the other day," Obama said.

He went on to note that he and his wife have "two daughters who are African-American, gorgeous, tall, and I hope, at some point, are interested enough in sports that they get athletic scholarships. ... I don't want them to be getting a bunch of information that, somehow, they're less than anybody else. And I don't think MSNBC should want to promote that kind of language."

Obama went on to say that he would not be a guest on Imus' show in the future.

So, based on the statement I made in my last entry, both Obama and Clinton gained a point today in my early calculations to see who I'm voting for in the New Jersey primary next year.

This is NOT About Don Imus, It's About the Racism of CBS and NBC

When Don Imus said to Al Sharpton this afternoon, "I can't get anyplace with you people," it became more obvious than ever that he lives in a world that is sharply divided between black and white. "You people" can only be taken one way. The other key statement from his interview with Reverend Sharpton is that he has no intention of resigning. It's also clear, after 40 years in the business, that he's not changing his stripes. He is who he is, and he's not leaving on his own.

The FCC (according to reports on CBS News tonight) will take no action because no nipples or f-words were involved.

So, with neither resignation nor government action imminent, the ball is now totally in the court of CBS (owner of his radio outlet) and NBC (owner of his television simulcaster). They either need to pull the plug on his microphone, or they are officially condoning racist slurs and the ability of old men to comment on the appearance and sexual habits of very young women.

This evening MSNBC administered its first wrist slap, but a two-week hiatus in the simulcast cannot be considered a punishment

And by the way, "You People" does not just include the "You People" of whom Al Sharpton is a member. There is also the sexist component of the term "nappy-headed hos" that has millions of women understandably upset. Here is an easy to follow campaign organized by the National Organization for Women that will help you send letters to the appropriate people at CBS and NBC.

Where are the high profile CBS and NBC personalities? Are they working behind the scenes to cleanse the racism from their organization? Do any of them have the guts to actually speak out about this stain on the network that feeds them? THAT probably would lead to a firing. This is America in 2007, where you can say anything you want about people younger and darker and weaker than you, but leave your bosses alone.

Where are the high profile professional athletes? How quickly would WFAN-AM in New York drop Imus if Derek Jeter and Eli Manning and David Wright refused to interact with that sports radio station until the I-man was gone? Beat Visitor is pleased to see that Cal Ripken is the first guest to cancel a scheduled Imus appearance, so maybe that wall is breaking too, but it is amazing to see, over and over again, how people get more cowardly when they have more to lose.

So, NBCBS overlords, please drop him soon, so I can get back to writing about Rutgers football before the Scarlet-White Game on April 21. If he's not gone by then, it will become the "April 21 Anti-Imus Rutgers Stadium Rally."
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UPDATE: Now CBS Radio has suspended Imus for two weeks "due to the events of the past week." (i.e., the protests, not the hateful comments about Rutgers women made on April 4). If he comes back onto CBS radio and MSNBC simulcasting in 2 weeks, it means that NBCBS is knowingly rehiring a racist, and the protest, at least on this site, will be twice as loud.