The 20 Most Racist Sports Statements of the Past 25 Years

Image via Complex Original

Date: 10/24/2009
Quote: "He's out having a taco."
Who said it: Bob Griese

As the quarterback for the 1972 Miami Dolphins, and longtime color commentator for ABC and ESPN, Bob Griese has been established for years now as a man of football. So, maybe, it's best if he just sticks with that. Because when the topic of NASCAR came up during a 2009 telecast of a college football game between Minnesota and Ohio State, Griese couldn't avoid sticking his foot in his mouth.

After a graphic displaying the top five drivers in the sport flashed across the screen, Griese's broadcast booth partner, Chris Spielman, wondered why Colombian racer Juan Pablo Montoya wasn't on the list. Unbelievably, Griese responded by saying, "He's out having a taco." Nice one, Bob. For his remark, Griese served a one-game suspension.

Date: 7/22/2012
Quote: "With so many Africans in Greece... the West Nile mosquitoes will at least eat homemade food!!!"
Who said it: Voula Papachristou

Twitter is a dangerous place for athletes, even low-profile ones. Greek track star, Voula Papachristou, learned that the hard way when she posted this so-called "joke" on her Twitter feed in July of 2012. Given the seriousness of West Nile disease, and the racial implications of the tweet, there was really nothing funny about this remark. The Greek Olympic Committee agreed. While she did apologize, Papachristou was dismissed from the team before she had a chance to compete in the Olympics that year.

Date: 1991
Quote: Referred to Ajax winger, Bryan Roy, as a "short n*****" and Brazilian striker, Romario, as "that coffee bean of PSV."
Who said it: Fritz Korbach

Though he would later claim that he was just speaking in "football language," former Holland manager, Fritz Korbach was really just being flat-out bigoted when he spoke down about then-Ajax winger, Bryan Roy, and the former Brazilian superstar, Romario. It's not "football language," Fritz, it's just "being racist." Thankfully, Korbach was suspended a match for his remarks by Holland's governing sports body.

Date: 1990
Quote: "We don't discriminate in every other area except blacks."
Who said it: Hall W. Thompson

Just read that quote again: "We don't discriminate in every other area except blacks." Amazingly, that probably made Hall W. Thompson—the founder and developer of Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club—think that he was still somehow in the right. With Shoal Creek hosting the 1990 PGA Championship, the quote came from Thompson when he was asked about the club's selective admission policies in the lead-up to event. Immediately after it was published, numerous civil rights groups promised that protests would be soon to follow. Sponsors for the event acted in solidarity by pulling out of the tournament, ultimately forcing Thompson and the club to relent on their racist rules.

Date: 4/21/2004
Quote: "He's what is known in some schools as a fucking lazy thick ni****."
Who said it: Ron Atkinson

A legend in the booth for soccer fans, Ron Atkinson was forced to bow out of broadcasting in disgrace after he dropped this racist insult about French footballer, Marcel Desailly. Thinking his microphone was cut, Atkinson instead dropped an n-bomb for the whole world to hear, and was relieved of his duties shortly thereafter. Is there any worse way to go out than that?

Date: 12/27/1999
Quote: "I'd retire first. It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7-Train to the ballpark looking like you're riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing...The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?"
Who said it: John Rocker

Rocker, Round 2. As we mentioned before, the interview that former Atlanta Braves pitcher, John Rocker, conducted with Sports Illustrated back in 1999 was a bit of a doozy. Most of the controversy was centered around the tirade Rocker launched against the city of New York, wherein he threw a prejudiced shot at nearly anyone he could. Like his comments against former teammate, Randall Simon, Rocker received no sort of punishment from either the MLB or the Braves.

However, Rocker became easily the biggest villain in all of baseball, and was regularly booed by fans everywhere when he and his Braves came to town. It's widely believed that this constant heckling ruined Rocker mentally. Just four years after saying his remarks about NYC, Rocker fell out of the game altogether due to a sharp decline in his performance.

Date: 1/4/2008
Quote: "Lynch him in the back alley."
Who said it: Kelly Tilghman

Lynching is a practice with deeply violent ties to the black community, and is definitely not something you want to be casually throwing out as a joke when you're on live television. The Golf Channel's Kelly Tilghman had to find this out the hard way, though, when she used the term in jest during a PGA Tour telecast in January of 2008. After studio partner, Nick Faldo, joked that other golfers on the tour would have to "gang up" on Tiger Woods in order to keep up with him, Tilghman responded by saying that they should "lynch him in the back alley." Oof. Tilghman was suspended for two weeks for her remarks but Tiger has held no grudge against her since the statement.

Date: 2002
Quote: "Tell Yao Ming, 'Ching chong yang, wah, ah soh.'"
Who said it: Shaquille O'Neal

The Big Aristotle was one of the best interviews around during his days in the NBA, but back in 2003, when former Rockets center, Yao Ming, was in the midst of his second season in the NBA, Shaq made himself look like a fool during a conversation about the Chinese big man. Speaking with the crew from FOX Sports' The Best Damn Sports Show Ever Period, Shaq made the same, lazy racist joke about the Chinese language that you and your friends did back when you were too young to know any better. For his part, Yao handled the remark well, joking back that, "Chinese is hard to learn. I had trouble with it when I was little." Props to him for taking the high road here.

Date: 6/9/2013
Quote: "I will fight every n***** here."
Who said it: Riley Cooper

Fair or not, country music fans get a pretty bad rap as it is when it comes to allegations of racism, so they couldn't have been too happy when the Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver was videotaped dropping the n-word at a Kenny Chesney concert this past summer. Using the word during an altercation with the show's bouncers after he attempted to go backstage, Cooper apologized profusely when video footage of the incident dropped, and was fined for an undisclosed amount by the Eagles. Just a quick tip to Cooper: When you're playing wide receiver in a league that's primarily African-American, you probably don't want to be too liberal with the racial slurs. Just something to keep in mind.

Date: 2/10/2012
Quote: "Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight."
Who said it: Jason Whitlock

ESPN columnist, Jason Whitlock, has never been afraid to flirt with controversy, but sometimes it just oversteps the boundaries of good taste. Exhibit A: his tweet about then-Knicks point guard, Jeremy Lin, during the early stages of Linsanity. Playing off of an old Asian sterotype, Whitlock essentially called out Lin's manhood via Twitter, while Lin was busy dropping 38 points on the Lakers the same night. Granted, it was a joke, but this one just took it too far. Whitlock received no punishment for his tweet, other than a wave of angry followers.

Date: 2/5/2013
Quote: "The family's little n*****."
Who said it: Paolo Berlusconi

Soccer has had a long, dirty history with racism and, unfortunately, we've had to watch that ignominious tradition continue on today with the likes of AC Milan vice president, Paolo Berlusconi, continuing to soil the sport's good name. Speaking during a political rally in Italy this past February, Berlusconi started making some jokes about his team and, unfortunately, when the subject of the mercurial striker, Mario Balotelli, came up, Berlusconi's language got a little bit crude.

Referring to Balotelli as his family's "little n*****," Berlusconi invited a firestorm of criticism upon himself for using such a vile term about one of his star players. Berlusconi, however, insisted that he was just being "affectionate" towards Balotelli, and made peace with the striker shortly after a video of his speech dropped. Kudos to Super Mario for being the bigger man on this one.

Date: 6/30/2012
Quote: "All my life I believed I became an athlete through my own determination, but it's impossible to think that being descended from slaves hasn't left an imprint through the generations. Difficult as it was to hear, slavery has benefited descendants like me—I believe there is a superior athletic gene in us."
Who said it: Michael Johnson

Being a black man doesn't make you exempt from making a racist statement against your own ethnicity, and there's really no better proof of that than former Olympic track star, Michael Johnson. It's clear that Johnson was trying to approach the situation delicately, but his point still fell on deaf ears. There's never a good reason to be thanking slavery for anything, even if you think it helped you win you a gold medal, and arguments that say otherwise are completely unfounded. Don't discount your own hard work with dubious scientific arguments like this, Michael. You're just making yourself look bad. 

Date: 7/5/2012
Quote: "Monday"
Who said it: John Perrault

Racism—even when it's coded—is still, unfortunately, racism. Many may not understand the term "Monday," as a racial slur, but in Massachusetts it's something of an insult toward black people, with the "joke" being that nobody likes Mondays. Carl Crawford had to figure that one out during a minor league rehab assignment with the Manchester Fisher Cats, when police officer, John Perrault, was heard heckling Crawford from the stands with a variety of racial taunts. Perrault was relieved of his duties as an officer when the slurs made headlines. You can chalk this incident up as another reason why Crawford was happy to get the hell out of Boston.

Date: 4/4/2007
Quote: "Those are some nappy-headed hoes." 
Who said it: Don Imus

One of the original "shock jocks", Don Imus was never afraid to step over the line during his time with CBS, but it was his remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team in 2007 that were finally the last straw for the network. Imus' comments were not only racially controversial but also completely disrespectful to a hard-working group of young, college athletes, and gained a heap of bad press for CBS. Despite apologizing for the comments, and serving out a two-week suspension, these outside pressures eventually forced CBS' hand in relieving Imus of his duties. The divorce was messy, but it's hard to argue that it wasn't also necessary.

Date: 12/13/2012
Quote: "My question is, and it's just a straight, honest question: Is he a brother, or is he a cornball brother. He's not really. He's black, he does his thing, but he's not really down with the cause. He's not one of us. He's kind of black, but he's not really like the kind of guy you really want to hang out with."
Who said it: Rob Parker

Stereotypes are one of the most frustrating aspects of racism, especially when one person is using them to tell you who you should be and what you should represent. You would think that, as a fellow black man to Redskins QB Robert Griffin III, former First Take personality Rob Parker, would've known to avoid treating RGIII in such a way. Unfortunately not. Parker openly questioned Griffin's "blackness" on First Take, only adding to the whirlwind of controversy that regularly surrounds the program. Even with that reputation in mind, though, Parker still couldn't save himself. He was let go by ESPN in Janury of 2013, and hasn't been heard from since.

Date: 4/21/1997
Quote: "You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it? Or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve."
Who said it: Fuzzy Zoeller

When Tiger Woods first broke into the PGA, his extraordinarily diverse background put a special attention on the young, "Caublinasian" athlete who was ready to play in what was primarily a white man's game. However, some people like Tour veteran Fuzzy Zoeller were apparently none too pleased with the development. After a disappointing finish in the 1997 Masters, Zoeller made his racist remarks towards Tiger, undoubtedly jealous of the success that the young phenom had been enjoying that weekend. Zoeller claimed that it was all a joke but, more than anything, he really just came off as a goat. As a result, Zoeller lost a couple sponsors, and had to issue a public apology for his insensitivity.

Date: 9/23/2003
Quote: "I'm sorry to say this, I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well."
Who said it: Rush Limbaugh

Rush Limbaugh is no stranger to controversy mainly because he's never wanted to be. Day in and day out, it seems like the conservative radio diva is just looking for ways to inspire criticism, and that was most certainly the case when he said Donovan McNabb was overrated because he's black. Never mind the fact that McNabb was on his way to a third straight NFC Championship game or that he was one of the five best quarterbacks in the league. Nope. The league just wants black quarterbacks to do good. FOH.

Date: 1/16/1988
Quote: "The black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way, because of his high thighs and big thighs that goes up into his back, and they can jump higher and run faster because of their bigger thighs and he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trade...the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid."
Who said it: Jimmy the Greek

A regular face for years on CBS' NFL pregame show, Jimmy The Greek was a rough-around-the-edges type who had the street smarts to make viewers feel like they had the inside scoop on gambling every Sunday. However, after 12 years with the network, Jimmy's stint came to a crashing halt after his racist comments about the advantages of black athletes drew some negative publicity his way. Though he would later express regrets for his statement, CBS had no choice but to fire Jimmy for his comments. Can you really blame them?

Date: 2/5/1993
Quote: Called Eric Davis and Dave Parker her "Million-dollar n*****s."
Who said it: Marge Schott

If you think that all old women are sweet and kindly, then you've never met any like former Cincinnati Reds owner, Marge Schott. Long reviled as one of the worst owners in all of baseball, Schott solidified her repuation in 1993 when she referred to her star players, Eric Davis and Dave Parker, as her "million-dollar n*****s." Classy, Marge. She later tried to cover herself by claiming that the comment was simply a joke. We still don't get it.

Date: 12/23/1999
Quote: "A fat monkey."
Who said it: John Rocker

Unfortunately for everyone, former major league pitcher John Rocker has never been the type to be afraid to speak his mind. The Kenny Powers of his day, Rocker's life off-the-field was often more noteworthy than his actual game. In a now-infamous interview with Sports Illustrated, Rocker solidified his loud-mouth reputation when he went off on a rant for the ages. The interview covered just about every base imaginable when it comes to racism and prejudice and, even worse, Rocker used the platform to take personal shots at one his teammates, Randall Simon.

Referring to Simon as a "fat monkey," Rocker somehow still had a job after the interview was published, and wasn't even punished for his statements, to the chagrin of many. If there was any justice in the world, the sports gods would've at least allowed Simon to take a couple swings at him. Even Rocker's apology wasn't taken seriously.