Five months ago, Grant Napear lost two prominent sportscasting jobs after responding on Twitter to the Black Lives Matter movement with, “ALL LIVES MATTER.”
Following the social media exchange with former Sacramento Kings center DeMarcus Cousins, several others stepped in, including Matt Barnes and Chris Webber alleging Napear as racially insensitive. One retired player who didn’t say anything was Napear’s now former co-host Doug Christie. And for not coming to his defense, Napear believes Christie is a “coward.”
After serving as co-host of the afternoon show on 1140 KHTK and the Sacramento Kings TV play-by-play voice, the sportscaster recently resurfaced with a podcast, If You Don’t Like That With Grant Napear. First reported by Jason Anderson of The Sacramento Bee, Napear recently discussed his relationship with Christie in response to a listener question.
“I’ve seen many people ask this question, and I’m just like, ‘Why duck it?’ There’s really no reason. Again, if I’m going to be transparent,” Napear said during his Oct. 30 podcast. “And I’m going to do a podcast and I’m going to do my rants and I’m going to put it all out there, then I’m either going to put it all out there 100% or not at all.”
The question was about whether or not Napear’s relationship with Christie is now fractured. The forthright response saw Napear reference Martin Luther King Jr. and describe his former co-host a “coward.”
“MLK Jr. said this, ‘In the end, we’ll remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’ Basically says comments from your enemies may hurt, right? That’s what that saying by MLK Jr. means, right? Comments from your enemies may hurt,” Napear said. “However, the hurt from friends not standing by and supporting you is forever remembered. Now, I would like to just take all of that and succinctly sum it up in just one word, and that one word is coward.”
Napear moved right on to the next question, which was unrelated to Christie. But clearly, Napear resents Christie’s lack of support as he was painted as someone with racist insensitivities and his career began to crumble five months ago.
Christie now co-hosts the afternoon show on KHTK 1140 with station program director and Kings radio voice Jason Ross. Joining Christie on the Kings TV broadcast during the NBA restart was Napear’s replacement, play-by-play announcer Gary Gerould who was hired with the interim label.
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
Good for Grant. Now, I hope he says the same thing about that tool Carmichael Dave. Both Dave and Christie wouldn’t be on the radio if it wasn’t for Napear.
I haven’t listened to 1140 at all since the cowardly way the station treated Grant and I used 1140 for all my sports information since before you even hired Grant . Grant was a great addition to your station and I may not always agreed with Grant but he talked from his heart and I could always get behind that type of person how you people took the info from a bunch of under performing players example DeMarus Cousins how he never played as part of the team only for hisself and Grant would call him on it he got his feelings hurt because the truth hurts and I’m proud that Grant went out the way he did he spoke from his heart told the truth and didn’t bow down
How hypocritical of Grant to quote MLK Jr when this whole issue started from Grant being insensitive to “Black Lives Matter “. Perhaps Christie does see racist traits in Grant for his support of Donald Sterling. Why blame Christie?
Ok , so what about Gary Gerold ? Has he come out and defended Grant ? Grant wouldn’t dare say anything about that . Doug’s just an easy target .
Why would a Black man defend your racist statement, Grant? This isn’t an isolated case…
I won’t defend Napear’s defense of Donald Sterling, but “All Lives Matter” is not a racist statement.
1140 am is weak as hell without big G . I can’t believe everyone got all in they’re feelings over such an innocuous statement. Where’s your loyalty to all the years Grant had not only the SK’s but Sactown’s back through thick and thin . The best announcer we had and ever will have IMO. “If you don’t like that you don’t like NBA basketball !”
Maybe instead of having a pre or post game show this season we can a spin off show With D Cuz and C Web called ( All the pot smoke) and they can ruin more lives and careers with their racist we’re better than you views