Rutgers Team Accepts Imus' Apology

Players Hope Incident Will Be "Catalyst For Change" For "Greater Ills In Our Culture"

(CBS/AP)  The Rutgers women's basketball team accepted radio host Don Imus' apology Friday for insulting them on the air, saying that he deserves a chance to move on, but that they hope the furor his word caused will be a catalyst for change.

"We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, accept — accept — Mr. Imus' apology, and we are in the process of forgiving," coach C. Vivian Stringer read from a team statement a day after the team met personally with Imus and his wife.

"We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget," the statement read.

"These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture. It is not just Mr. Imus, and we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change. Let us continue to work hard together to make this world a better place."

Imus' wife, Deirdre, and long-time Imus sidekick Charles McCord subbed for the fired radio talk show host Friday.

"This remains very much 'Imus In The Morning and 'DI' — it's just not Donald Imus, it's the much better-looking of the Imus duo. It is Deirdre Coleman Imus," McCord said on the air Friday morning.

They took over his radio fundraiser Friday after CBS fired the host for racist remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

The fundraising drive netted more than $3 million in pledges and left one charity director in tears, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

"To punish him, you're punishing a thousand kids that he has aided every single day," said Lynn Hoffman of the Tomorrow's Children's Fund.

Deirdre Imus described her husband's brief meeting with the Rutgers team the night before and praised the women as "beautiful and courageous."

"They gave us the opportunity to listen to what they had to say and why they're hurting and how awful this is," the author said as she co-hosted the fundraiser for children's charities.

"He feels awful," she said. "He asked them, 'I want to know the pain I caused, and I want to know how to fix this and change this.'"

"I have to say that these women are unbelievably courageous and beautiful women," she said.

In a strange twist, the man who had suggested the New Jersey governor's mansion as a location for the meeting, Gov. Jon Corzine, was not there. He is in the hospital after a serious car accident on his way back to the mansion.

The two-day radio fundraiser had been scheduled long before Don Imus' on-air description of team members as "nappy-headed hos" set off a national debate about taste and tolerance.

On Wednesday, a week after the remark and after advertisers began pulling their support, MSNBC said it would no longer televise the show. CBS fired Imus Thursday from the radio show that he has hosted for nearly 30 years.

The team's goal was never to get Imus fired, Stringer said. "It's sad for anyone to lose their job," she said.

Deirdre Imus' radio hosting career may be short-lived: Westwood One, which syndicates the "Imus in the Morning" program, notified its affiliates that Boston radio talk show host Mike Barnicle, a frequent guest on "Imus," would take over the timeslot for the next two weeks. His one-hour show normally follows Imus on his home station of WTKK-FM.

Currently a contributor to the Boston Herald, Barnicle is not without controversy himself: He resigned from the Boston Globe in 1998 following questions about the sources of at least two of his columns for that paper.

[jerseytoo]

Rutgers girls basketball team accepted the apology of Don Imus. I can find forgivness in my heart for his offensive statement. How about those Christian men? Where's their forgiveness?
I am having trouble forgiving those who turned their backs on Don Imus. You know who you are...all of you who used his program to promote your own needs. Shameful! That's more shameful than his ignorant comment. CBS and MSNBC, in caving to the pressure, the punishment did not fit the crime. You too should be ashamed.

[judeca1]

Everyone interested - there is one radio station 60 miles out of Los Angeles that is going to run the "Best of Imus" from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. It's station KCAA Radio 1050AM.
www.KCAARADIO.com

[kiddo88]

Im proud that the basketball team could do more than two 'reverends' could...forgive the trespasses against us. I commend your strength and grace!

[cjhr43]

man, some of the garbage here is more offensive than what Imus said... the deal is over... time to get back to the daily routine and wait for the next molehill to grow into a mountain.

[hermit22]

for the record, i have NEVER suggested anyone swat people!~

if the mosquito bites, SWAT it,
to SPARE other people....

if there is a problem, deal with it,
don't just ignore it.

if "ignoring" the toxic media worked so well, we wouldn't be here hashing this out now.

[firstamend1]

I know what would be a good idea...Radio show called "Imus & Jesse" that would mimick Amos & Andy and Al Sharpton would play "Kingfish"... They could go at it bare knuckles and I (WASP) would even listen to that !!

[randalds]

Posted by overstand at 08:25 PM : Apr 14, 2007

I think that it's become obvious from your "comments" here and in the other thread that you're not the least bit interested in an adult discussion of issues and instead are only interested in bleating out your narrow-minded hill-billy bullsh*it. It's also obvious that you're just one of the usual trolls here but under a different name. Begone toad. You're not intelligent enough for me to talk to and don't have the capacity to understand that. In short, you're not worth my time or effort.

[ioverstand]

I'm from the hills. I can see you are as well. Black naked women have quickly become the issue. They're in the video and the movies. Why are the videos worse than the movies? The attempt to turn this around as something other than a racist comment has fallen upon deaf ears.

[randalds]

What's the difference btwn. black rappers exploiting their women and Billy Bob Thornton having his way w/ a naked Halle Berry in "MonsterBall"? Any comments? Thought not.
Posted by overstand at 07:59 PM : Apr 14, 2007

What an amazingly, incredible ignorant, analogy. The two are not even close in any way, shape or form. They are not even in the same ballpark. Do you bother to read what you type or does the cra*p just sort of flow out? You're either 13 years old or from the hills somewhere. Grow up before you post. For our sake. Thank you.

[ioverstand]

Aside from everything else, the comments were unprofessional and meant as some sort of off kilter joke. Nothing was funny about it. And about this hip hop thing.....It's unfair to judge this as if every "artist" partakes in this type of music. Actually, most of them don't. Just a relatively small percentage of them do. It's just that these are the ones you see and hear the most. B/c of our sick culture's taste for entertainment. So let's not blame the rappers. That's a d**n cop out. Half of the kids buying the junk aren't even black. So get off of it. By the way, what about this Quentin Tarantino a**hole and his infatuation w/ the word n****er. Focus people. What's the difference btwn. black rappers exploiting their women and Billy Bob Thornton having his way w/ a naked Halle Berry in "MonsterBall"? Any comments? Thought not.