(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.

© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Back To Top