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Students Seek Packer Apology


College basketball announcer Billy Packer appeared to be in no hurry to apologize to two Duke students who say he made sexist remarks before a basketball game.

Students Jen Feinberg and Sarah Bradley said they were checking credentials at Cameron Indoor Stadium for the Feb. 26 game between Duke and St. John's. Feinberg did not recognize Packer, one of the announcers for CBS, and asked who he was.

"He said: 'You need to get a life. Since when do we let women control who gets into a men's basketball game? Why don't you go find a women's game to let people into?"' Feinberg quoted Packer as saying. "I was stunned. I couldn't think of anything to say."

Feinberg and Bradley said a stadium official who saw the exchange apologized for Packer, saying he must have been joking.

They said Packer heard the comment, turned and said, "No, that's just the kind of guy I am."

The two students sent a letter to CBS Sports president Sean McManus, a Duke graduate, seeking an apology. The letter also was sent to the campus newspaper.

"Just because he's some big-shot sports announcer and we're a couple of female college students, it doesn't make it OK for him to say things like that," Feinberg said.

McManus sent both students an e-mail Friday saying that Packer should be calling them personally.

Packer, a star guard at Wake Forest in the early 1960s, said Friday night that he hasn't called the two women.

"I have not talked to CBS>/i> about contacting them," Packer said. "I have nothing to say about it. If those two girls have a problem with me, they should call me up. I'm easy to find, or they should've told me at the time."

Packer said he "would not be able to remember what I said," but he has never been questioned about entering Cameron in his 30 years covering games there.

Four years ago, Packer was widely criticized after referring to then-Georgetown guard Allen Iverson as a "tough little monkey." Packer, who apologized on the air, later had a telephone conversation with the Rev. Jesse Jackson about the comment.

©2000 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed

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