Miami alum fired from broadcasting job

Lamar Thomas who was doing the color commentary for Comcast Sports coverage of the University of Miami/FIU football game in which a bench-clearing brawl broke out has been fired for comments he made on the air. According to the Barry Jackson article about the matter Thomas made the following comments which you can hear by clicking here:

"You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked," Thomas told viewers. "You don't come into the Orange Bowl playing that stuff. You're across the ocean over there. You're across the city over there. You can't come over to our place talking noise like that. You'll get your butt kicked. I was about to go down the elevator and get into that thing."

He even seemed disappointed when the referees finally got control. ''Why don't they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more?'' he urged. ``You don't come into the Orange Bowl, baby -- we've had a down couple of years -- but you don't come in here talking trash. . . .

"You come in here talking smack, it's time to get it on. We let you play in our stadium -- they play well, I gotta give it to FIU, they played well so far -- but you cross the line at some point."

As brilliant as those remarks were, his remarks after the incident (but before he was fired) are even better:

''I'm very new to this whole media thing,'' said Thomas. "I'm an ex-player. I love the school I was doing games for. I'm very passionate about the University of Miami. I love those kids just like my brothers. I played with my emotions on my sleeve, and I broadcast games just like that.

"Unfortunately, this thing blew up into a national event and I was caught with my pants down. If I had to do it all over again, I would be a little more tactful."

Now I understand that Mr. Thomas WAS new to the broadcasting game, but I'm quite sure that he's seen quite few games on TV and maybe even heard quite a few on the radio and I'm wondering if he's ever heard an announcer make the kind of remarks which he made. My bet is that he hasn't and I sure as hell haven't either. Wasn't the fact that his announcing partner remained quiet during the entire fiasco a clue to Mr. Thomas to keep his trap shut?

CSS General Manager Mark Fuhrman (I would have changed my name if I were him) said "We considered multiple options...We felt this was the appropriate action."

On that, Mr. Fuhrman and this sagacious saurian can agree.