Maggie Gray of CBS Sports Radio took some heat recently for incorrectly describing the role of various positions across the offensive line in football. While she publicly laughed off most of it, her colleague Damon Amendolara thought at least one comment was especially disrespectful.
Amendolara was asked about WDAE’s Ian Beckles saying that Gray “doesn’t know sports” on the new episode of The Sports Talkers Podcast. He told Stephen Strom that he was not happy about it.
“I know the work she puts in and I don’t think that’s fair to say,” Amendolara said. “I also thought it feels a little sexist because it’s ‘Hey, MAGGIE doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’ There was kind of a tinge there that when I heard him say it, it kinda sounds like we’re telling the women they don’t know sports.”
Damon Amendolara was careful to say that he does not know Beckles and he is not definitively saying the former guard for the Buccaneers and Eagles is a sexist. His problem is with the comment itself.
He added that he understands the frustration athletes have with any member of the media that criticizes what happens on the field, because it has to be exhausting hearing hot takes about yourself and your teammates.
“We’re not subtle enough,” he said. “Everything today is pull the pin on the grenade and throw it and blow it up. I’m not saying Maggie does that, but we as a media do that all the time.”
He added that the attitude some athletes have that if you didn’t play the game you are not qualified to talk about it is especially frustrating. Someone like Ian Beckles should know that. He, like so many other athletes, chose a career in the media when their playing days were over and should see how hard their colleagues work to be informed and understand what they are seeing on the field.
“I relate to athletes in that way because I hear athletes dismiss the media, then go into the media and go ‘well, this is a little bit harder than I thought.’ Randy Moss and all these guys that shunned the media for years and then got into it and said ‘Yeah, this is probably a little harder than I thought.’ It’s like ‘Oh, you think? We’re committed as well to our craft.’”
