Las Vegas Weekly

January 19, 2010 · 5:15 PM

Greenberg’s MLK Day verbal gaffe has a familiar ring to it

By John Katsilometes

The Mike Greenberg utterance of a racial slur on Mike and Mike in the Morning, the ESPN Radio show he co-hosts with Mike Golic, is a reminder of a nearly exact regretful phrase spoken by then-KTNV Channel 13 weatherman Rob Blair.

If you were around on Jan. 15, 2005, you'll likely recall that Blair sipped the word "coon" into Martin Luther King Jr.'s name when reporting the forecast for Martin Luther King Day. The word was subbed for "King," and Blair apologized three times on the air for the remark, saying the word slipped out as he stumbled through the report.

The segment aired on a Saturday morning; by Monday, KTNV issued a statement that Blair had been fired. He worked in Las Vegas for about three months. After working in sales in Los Angeles for a time, Blair was lured back to broadcasting by KHSL Channel 12 in Chico, Calif., that market's CBS affiliate. He has worked at KHSL since March 2007, is highly regarded in the community for his charity work and hasn't had a repeat of anything akin to the controversy that led him to leave Las Vegas. Click here to see Blair in action in ChicoVille. (Blair has not responded yet to an e-mail sent this afternoon seeking comment about Greenberg's gaffe.)

In the wake of his apparently accidental verbal misstep, Greenberg's explanation is similar to Blair's. In a statement released Monday night, he said: "I just came home from the Knicks game and found out about the mess that was created by my garbling a sentence on our show this morning; I apologize for not addressing it sooner. And I'm sorry that my talking too fast — and slurring my words — might have given people who don't know our show the wrong impression about us, and about me. I feel horrible about that, because nothing could be further away from who I am and what our show is about. I would never say anything like that, not in public, or in private, or in the silence of my own mind, and neither would anyone associated with our show, and I'm very sorry that my stumble this morning gave so many people the opposite impression."

Greenberg still has his job with ESPN Radio and as a SportsCenter anchor on ESPN. Check the accompanying YouTube clip and judge for yourself how Greenberg came to make the statement.

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