WORST FOOTBALL ANALOGY EVER...

On The Team 1200 just now, a panelist whose name shall remain generic as a public service actually said, "The biggest storm to hit New Orleans since Katrina is going to come this weekend when the Eagles stun them," referring to the New Orleans Saints.

Let's see... one thousand eight hundred thirty-six people dead (at least), probably $100 billion in damages, 200,000 Louisianans uprooted. On the other hand, the Saints are hosting a second-round playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles tomorrow night. Yeah. That's a totally valid analogy.

Yes, Hurricane Katrina was almost 17 months ago and sensitivities aren't so heightened today among the general public, including sports radio listeners. Yes, a sense of humour gets you farther in this life than being a lemon-sucking nitpicker, but that wasn't cool. Having had the chance to meet the commentator in question, it was disappointing to hear him say that.

That Katrina line is one you maybe say at a bar at 10 beers to 2 a.m., and even then you make it clear that you're not serious. You play it off as a joke. This commentator said it in full seriousness -- he totally owned it -- in front of a live microphone on a commercial radio station at midday, all while presumably sober as a judge.

The anger here isn't so much at the guy -- whom we've met and believe is good at what he does -- as the format that allows you to say something so astoundingly stupid and get away with it. It is sports radio, and it is supposed to about saying silly things, "going off," guys being guys, sounding like they would in front of TV and with a few libations in hand, but it's still professional, it's still journalism, so don't say things like that. Granted, they want people who speak off the cuff and damn the torpedoes, but you can be off the cuff -- and damn the torpedoes -- and still be intelligent.

Do you think, in the big leagues of sport media -- this is Ottawa, so that would mean Toronto -- that Bob McCown says that on The Fan 590? Do you think Jim Rome says that on his syndicated show which is playing on The Team 1200 at this very moment? No, they don't.

Most people have moved on from the shock and horror that came with seeing the TV images and reading the media coverage from Louisiana, but people all along the Gulf Coast are still displaced, and the city is ravaged by violent crime.

People used to draw analogies between war and football all the time. Eventually, they pretty much stopped, since they realized that was really dumb. Think about what is implied when you say, "The biggest storm to hit New Orleans since Katrina is going to come this weekend when the Eagles stun them." Listeners will hear that and figure, well, the Saints are back in the Superdome, so everything must be fine down there. So it's OK to care more about a football game than tens of thousands of uprooted people. So be it.

(UPDATE: Just to show you how dumb this viewpoint is, over at Deadspin A.J. Daulerio is writing, "Just bear in mind that the Superdome is only a symbol of hope and renewal to some people; to others, it's still the 'hot, crowded building where I stayed for 10 days eating diaper sandwiches and using my dead grandmother as a cot.' ")

A.J. is making the point that 17 months later that are raw wounds gaping from Katrina, and to think football can fully heal all of that is optimistic by half. So drawing an analogy between the human catastrophe of Katrina and what the Eagles might do to the Saints is in the worst possible taste.

(UPDATE: Of course, New Orleans won, and as Daulerio noted, Fox stayed away from that theme. Perhaps the blogosphere had some influence.)

This is coming from a pathetic wannabe (that'd be me, not Daulerio), but one who had some experience with a sports radio program back in university. Take it from the pathetic wannabe that it's not impossible to be unrestrained and off-the-cuff without making a statement of nearly breathtaking insensitivity.

(Of course, this is the same station whose morning man has a blog where he posts a picture of Lindsay Lohan with the Stanley Cup and writes, "Please look away if you've just eaten." Wow, way to tell your fans that it's OK to hold anti-woman sentiments. Although that could just be me overthinking it. Sorry.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.