As a 40-year sportswriter and radio announcer, it’s been my job to report on thousands of gifted athletes making the most of their athletic gifts on the field of competition. But it has also been my sad duty to report on many misstatements made by announcers, writers, coaches and players and supposed friends of the games.

Last week, syndicated morning radio jock Don Imus shot himself in the foot, doing a spoof about the Rutgers University Women’s’ Basketball team that went sadly awry, when he referred to the women as “nappy-headed ho’s.”

Eight players on the team are African-Americans. “Ho is an uncouth street term for a woman, which treats all women as sex-objects only.

Not two weeks earlier, Albany Patroons basketball coach Michael Ray Richardson spoke to reporters before engaging his brain and made several regrettable anti-Semitic remarks that made headlines in the Albany Times-Union, and later in Filip Bondy’s column in the New York Daily News .

Ironically, I don’t believe either man intended their remarks in a malicious manner, nor do I think that the slurs are truly indicative of either man. However, words hurt, even if they are not meant mean-spiritedly.

Imus, noted for poking fun at everybody, has not hidden behind a press agent or an attorney. This morning (April 9) he made a mea culpa on his morning show: “I am not a bad person,” he said. “I did a bad thing.” Then he went uptown and made an appearance on Reverend Al Sharpton’s radio show, again professing his guilt and asking for forgiveness.

Why did he choose to appear on Sharpton’s show: “I am here to face the music. If I am going to do that, I want to do it in front of the conductor.”

Sharpton, along with Jessie Jackson who has been calling loudly for Imus’s firing from WFAN, the flagship of his syndication, and MSNBC, which televises the radio show live nationally, would have nothing to do with the apology, nor, he acknowledged, would he stop calling for Imus’ firing.

Instead, WFAN is suspending Imus for two weeks beginning next Monday; far less than the two African-Americans have called for, but a surprising decision considering Imus is the station’s financial rainmaker.

As for Richardson, he received his justice with lightening speed. One day after the story appeared in the Times-Union, the Patroons suspended him for the balance of the season. The team offered no word about his future or if he will return next year.

“Richardson's career here in America may well be finished for a second time,” Bondy wrote on March 29. "’We had to react,’" said Jim Coyne, general manager of the Patroons. "’He didn't deny he said some things, though he said he may have been quoted out of context. He hasn't decided yet what he's going to do now. The wind is out of his sails today.’

“The remarks came before a loss to the Yakama Sun Kings in Game 1 of the Continental Basketball League playoffs. Albany Times Union reporters asked Richardson about his contractual status for the upcoming U.S. Basketball League season. He was then quoted in a column by Brian Ettkin as responding, "’I've got big-time lawyers. I've got big-time Jew lawyers.’" He went on with little or no prodding to say, "’They know that in this country the Jews are running it if you really think about it. I mean, which is not a bad thing, you know what I mean?

"’They got a lot of power in this world, you know what I mean?’ Richardson said. ‘Which I think is great. I don't think there's nothing wrong with it. If you look in most professional sports, they're run by Jewish people. If you look at a lot of most successful corporations and stuff, more businesses, they're run by Jewish. It's not a knock, but they are some crafty people. Listen, they are hated all over the world, so they've got to be crafty.'

“This whole unfortunate and ill-conceived discussion may well have gone unreported, except that Richardson then made the exchange more relevant by responding to a heckler during the Patroons' game at the Washington Armory, calling him a derogatory name for a homosexual. Richardson told Coyne and Truax that he didn't remember saying all the things cited in the newspaper.

"(In) the time I've known Michael, I've never seen anything of this nature," Coyne said. "We've had rabbis here, all ethnic groups, we never had a problem."

Richardson, 51, was once married to a Jewish woman. During his days as a player with the New Jersey Nets, — he also played for the New York Knicks — he was allegedly close to Jewish owners on the team. NBA commissioner David Stern, also a Jew, who suspended Richardson for drug use in 1986, showed Richardson some rakhmones, resurrecting his career here in the U.S., recommending him for a position in community relations for the Denver Nuggets and then as coach of the Patroons.

"It's terrible and I don't think it's fair," Richardson told the Associated Press. "But I want to make an apology if I offended anyone because that's not me."