Miami/FIU Controversy
During an intense on-field brawl between Miami and FIU on October 14, 2006, Thomas defended his alma mater. Besides defending the Miami players, he expressed a desire to join the fight himself:
| “ | "You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don't come into the OB playing that stuff....You can't come over to our place talking noise like that. You'll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing.....I say, why don't we meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more? You don't come into the OB, baby. We've had a down couple of years but you don't come in here talking smack. Not in our house." | ” |
Thomas later claimed he was joking about his comments, but two days after this incident, Comcast Sports Southeast fired him.
On the October 17, 2006 episode of Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes, Thomas said he got caught up in the moment and made a mistake. However, he said he did not blame Comcast for firing him.
Later, a message from Thomas was allegedly posted to the Miami discussion board on scout.com. He claimed that he had been taken aside earlier in the year and told he needed to be "more pro-UM" as his criticism of the struggling team had been taken rather hard by the players. He dismissed concerns that he was serious when he said he wished he could have gone down on the field and joined in ("I'm 36 years old, what the hell would I have accomplished?") and said, "If that was during my tenure we would have invited FIU to Tamiami Park to get it on." He was not, he said, hired to be neutral.
Read more about this topic: Lamar Thomas
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)