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Rutgers team blasts Imus

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 11, 2007

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - The Rutgers women's basketball team criticized radio host Don Imus Tuesday for "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable and abominable" and agreed to meet with the embattled radio host.

Starting Monday, Imus will be suspended for two weeks for calling the players "nappy-headed hos."

Rutgers players, who had not spoken publicly until Tuesday, called his comments insensitive and hurtful - but reserved judgment on whether he should be fired until after they meet him.

"Unless they've given 'ho' a whole new definition, that's not what I am," said Kia Vaughn, the team's sophomore center.

Calls for Imus' dismissal have been growing since he made the remarks about the team - which includes eight black women - a day after the team lost the national championship game to Tennessee on April 3.

Rutgers' players and head coach C. Vivian Stringer said Imus' comments took the luster off an incredible season.

"The Rutgers university women's basketball team has made history," said Essence Carson, a junior forward. "We haven't done anything to deserve this controversy."

Rutgers' athletic director, Robert E. Mulcahy III, thought a meeting with Imus, who requested an audience with the team, would offer the players a chance to hear what he has to say.

Imus, who has made a career of cranky insults in the morning, was fighting for his job after the joke that by his own admission went "way too far."

While acknowledging the severity of his mistake, Imus said he just hadn't been thinking when he made the comments.

Stringer said, "While they worked hard in the classroom and accomplished so much and used their gifts and talents ... to bring the smiles and the pride within this state in so many people, we had to experience racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable, and abominable and unconscionable. It hurts me."

[Last modified April 11, 2007, 02:28:09]