During today’s Ohio State-Minnesota game on ESPN, color commentator Bob Griese made what some would call a head-scratching comment about NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya, saying the Colombian was busy sampling Mexican cuisine as the reason he wasn’t one of the five drivers shown on the screen.
At the end of the game, Griese apologized, saying that “Juan Pablo Montoya, he’s one of the best drivers in NASCAR. Just want to apologize for the comment I made earlier in the ballgame.
ESPN has now released a statement to CFT addressing the “situation, and here’s the text of it in its entirety.
“During today’s telecast of the Ohio State-Minnesota college football game on ESPN, analyst Bob Griese made an inappropriate comment when discussing NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya. Bob apologized during the telecast, and plans to apologize again tonight during ESPN’s college football programming after his plane lands. ESPN has spoken to Bob and he understands that his comment was uncalled for.”
So, there you have it.
UPDATE: Instead of putting the second apology into a separate post and run the risk of running this into the ground any further, I’ll just put the latest apology here and throw a new time stamp on it.
(Disclaimer: The management apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause to our valued readers.)
Anyway, here’s the new statement from Griese, made at halftime of the Florida-Mississippi State game:
“Earlier today on our game I made an offensive comment regarding Juan Pablo Montoya as part of a NASCAR promo. It was regrettable and I should not have said it. I really enjoy NASCAR and I follow it closely and would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Juan, NASCAR and everyone else who heard my comment.”