Alex Thomas
ESPN broadcaster Robert Lee was scheduled to call an upcoming University of Virginia football game, but in light of recent tragic events in Charlottesville, Va., the network has pulled him from that assignment because of the similarity between his name and that of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
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In a statement released on Twitter by Sports Illustrated writer Richart Deitsch, ESPN’s public relations team wrote:
We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games … simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment, it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue.
Lee’s decision to request a change of assignment comes on the heels of recent protests in Charlottesville, in which a counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was allegedly killed by a white supremacist.
In a follow-up tweet, Deitsch quoted that ESPN spokesperson Keri Potts noted that the network “did not mandate that Lee change his assignment.”
HuffPost writer Yashar Ali posted an email from an ESPN executive that claimed:
“This wasn’t about offending anyone. It was about the reasonable possibility that because of his name he would be subjected to memes and jokes and who knows what else. Think about it. Robert Lee comes to town to do a game in Charlottesville…when the protests in Charlottesville were happening, we raised with him the notion of switching games. Something we do all the time. We didn’t make him. We asked him. Eventually we mutually agreed to switch…No politically correct efforts. No race issues. Just trying to be supportive of a young guy who felt it best to avoid the potential zoo.”
Lee is of Asian heritage, as New York Post sportswriter Mike Vaccaro noted, “In an era of rampant stupidity, ESPN taking an Asian announcer named Robert Lee off a Virginia football game may be the dumbest idea ever.” Sopan Deb, a culture writer at the New York Times joked, “I wish Skip Bayless was named Robert Lee while he was at ESPN.”
RARE OPINION: Complaining about political correctness shutting down speech is also a way to shut down speech
Joe Clarkin of SEC Country contributed to this report.
