Two sports announcers in Maine were fired earlier this week for making horrible remarks about multiple high school girls’ weight while announcing their basketball game.
“Two girls out here extremely overweight,” one of them says on an apparent hot mic, according to the Press-Herald. “Awful.” Laughter follows the disparaging comments from Jim Carter and Steve Shaw, the outlet reported.
WHOU-FM received multiple complaints about these comments. The station fired the announcers after the occurrence but sadly more comments were made during the broadcast of a varsity basketball game between Easton High School and Central Aroostook High School.
Shaw also mentioned finding “uniforms that fit the girls,” and Carter singled out one of the girls by her uniform number. “Wow,” he said, according to NBC affiliate WCSH. “Would you look at her?”
Neither of the men realized their mics were on when making these comments.
But in a statement to WCSH, Easton Superintendent Mark Stanley said he became aware of their disparaging comments on Thursday night.
“We’re a small school up here, we know all our kids really well, we’re lucky in that regard, and so we know every single player that was on that team being talked about,” he said. “I think anger is probably the reaction everybody had when they saw and heard what happened.
To make matters worse, Shaw and Carter each held positions in high school athletic departments before they began broadcasting this year. Shaw is a former athletic director at Easton and Carter a former coach from another school.
Parents were furious upon hearing the remarks.
Joseph Leach, who has a daughter who plays for one of the teams disparaged by Carter and Shaw, felt “mostly shock,” according to the Press-Herald.
“I was home after the games and somebody shared the video with us and I instantly knew it was Jim Carter and Steve Shaw talking, and I really just couldn’t believe what they were saying, honestly,” Leach said.
Carter told the Press-Herald he apologized to the superintendent. “I don’t even know what to say,” Carter said. “Hopefully everybody can get through this and be OK.”
