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.