Free Republic

On Tuesday morning, commentary on the broadcast of the Bowl Championship Series national title game between Alabama and Notre Dame included words like “creepy,” “awkward,” “uncomfortable” and “heteronormative.” The subject was not Alabama’s 42-14 victory, but comments made during the game by the ESPN play-by-play announcer Brent Musburger regarding the girlfriend of Alabama quarterback A J McCarron. In the first quarter, ESPN showed McCarron’s girlfriend, Katherine Webb, who was sitting near his parents. Musburger called the 23-year-old Webb, a former Miss Alabama, a “lovely lady” and “beautiful,” and said to his broadcast partner, Kirk Herbstreit, a former quarterback at Ohio...

Brent Musburger, the play-by-play man for some of college football's biggest games, told a group of college journalism students that professional athletes under a doctor's supervision could potentially use steroids to improve performance. Musburger, on the lead announcing team for ABC and ESPN, told students at the University of Montana that steroids have no place in high school athletics, but they could be used in the pros under the proper care and doctor's advice. "Here's the truth about steroids: They work," he said in a story reported by The Missoulian. "I've had somebody say that, you know, steroids should be...

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Southern California formally complained that ABC-TV's Brent Musburger revealed privileged information in play-by-play commentary during Saturday's game against Nebraska. The university sent a letter to ESPN, which oversees sports programming on ABC, saying Musburger, with less than 10 minutes to play and the Trojans leading 21-10, began describing how USC quarterback John David Booty lets receivers know he has spotted a certain kind of coverage.