Fired radio host admits he'd be offended by segment mocking ill player. If he had been listening from his car Monday morning, radio veteran Steak Shapiro knew what he would have thought of a bit mocking a former New Orleans Saint now battling Lou Gehrig's disease.
"I would have been offended."
Why? The now former host of "Mayhem in the AM" on Atlanta's 790 The Zone offered up plenty of reasons in an interview Tuesday with CNN's Brooke Baldwin. And none of his descriptions of the now infamous two-minute radio bit were positive.
Stupid. Not thought out. Offensive. Awful. And not funny.
"You walk a fine line trying to be somewhat on the edge," Shapiro said. "We blew it. We blew it in a huge way."
Shapiro and the show's two other hosts -- Chris Dimino and Nick Cellini -- were fired Monday evening.
It all started, he explained, as the show's crew batted around ideas during a commercial break. The Atlanta Falcons are big in Georgia, and the New Orleans Saints are likely their biggest rivals. And it just so happened that Gleason, one of the men most associated with the Louisiana team, had been the guest writer for Peter King's popular "Monday Morning Quarterback" column this week on SI.com.
But Gleason isn't just any Saint. He's a hero in New Orleans not just for his play as a defensive back but, more recently, for his battle against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neuromuscular disease also known by its acronym ALS and as Lou Gehrig's disease.
The illness has hindered many of Gleason's functions, but it hasn't stopped him. To put together the column, he pointed out, he used technology that allowed him to type with his eyes. Gleason also explained his struggles with, and triumphs over, the disease.
"ALS prevents your brain from talking to your muscles. As a result, muscles die. As a result, every 90 minutes people die," he wrote. "I am a person."
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