Announcer criticizes high schooler for dunking, later resigns
Exuberant dunk or obscene showboating? Depends on your perspective.
Our scene: the town of Ossian, Indiana. A Friday night game between Homestead High and Norwell High. Homestead’s Trent Loomis punctuated a victory with a dunk and a brief hang on the rim, which led to a technical foul. And then, the announcer covering the game decided to get a little editorial.
Didn’t mean any disrespect, but thanks for the encouragement kind sir, I’m flattered! 🐐 pic.twitter.com/JjOOsOUf2k
— Trent Loomis (@trent_loomis) February 23, 2019
“Loomis gets two, but then he gets tech’ed up for being a jackass,” the announcer said. “Stay classy, Homestead. May you lose in the first round like you always do. Typical Homestead attitude. No class whatsoever. What else is new? Congratulations, you didn’t even cover the damn spread.”
That seems a pretty clear overstep of the bounds of journalistic impartiality. A little hometown editorializing is one thing, calling out a player by name and wishing ill on a school’s future hopes is something else.
Wellscountyvoice.com, which broadcast the game, noted that the announcer resigned shortly after the game.
“Disappointment is not strong enough to describe what we are feeling this morning,” the owners of Wellscountyvoice said in a statement. “We will take some time to ask ourselves how we could have prevented this and what, if anything, we do going forward.”
Wellscountyvoice.com’s owners noted that their “hearts are broken,” but they shouldn’t be, nor should the service stop providing its broadcast service to Indiana high school basketball fans. This was a case of one announcer getting way, way, WAY too into the game ... and a little cooling-off was exactly the right thing to do.
____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
More from Yahoo Sports:
