Image via Complex Original
As you probably know by now, Colin Cowherd is leaving ESPN. An employee for the network since 2003, Cowherd has been a consistently controversial personality for the Worldwide Leader, often garnering criticism for his off-the-cuff style and questionable (read: racist) perspectives. His beef with Washington Wizards point guard John Wall has been a shameful radio circus. His disrespect for the late Sean Taylor was the type of ill-timed contrarianism that's better suited for a deep, dark sub-Reddit. He has also openly ripped off or terrorized small sports blogs during his time on-the-air, including, ironically, The Big Lead, which broke the story of Cowherd's departure yesterday.
So, while Cowherd was undoubtedly loved by some (he does have nearly a million Twitter followers, after all), there are also plenty of sports fans who are happy to see him go. For those who need a refresher about why, exactly, that is, look no further than this short list of Colin Cowherd's Most Controversial Moments at ESPN. We tried to keep it brief; but, trust us, this list could've been much longer.
His Successful Call to "Blow Up" The Big Lead
Back in 2007, when several sports blogs were in their infancy, Colin Cowherd took aim at one in particular: The Big Lead. For no discernible reason, Cowherd asked his listeners nationwide to “blow up a website.” From that point, Cowherd’s waves of listeners visited The Big Lead, resulting in the site shutting down from garnering too much traffic than it could handle.
It’s not even like Cowherd shut the site down for like 15 minutes or anything; he got his listeners to shut it down for over two days.
Immediately after shutting it down, Cowherd didn’t even feel any remorse or empathy towards The Big Lead, saying, “We don’t even know The Big Lead.” He then continued for a little longer, and at which point he felt like stroking his own ego by instructing his listeners to, “knock it out again, just for fun.”
Due to the strange circumstances surrounding the whole thing, Cowherd managed to avoid discipline from ESPN. However, he did get publicly scolded by then-ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber.
His Love for the "Mostly White" State of Oregon
Now, we all have our favorite state. Some of us love New York because it’s home to the city that never sleeps, while others like Florida because it’s the Sunshine State. What state does Cowherd love?
Oregon. He really really loves Oregon.
And not because of its many micro-breweries or farm-to-table restaurants, but instead because it’s mostly white people. Yep.
Back in March on his radio show, The Herd, a producer suggested that Oregon was a 14-seed in a hypothetical March Madness tournament for U.S. states, and asked an irate Cowherd what was so great about it. Cowherd ranted: “How about wonderful people, mostly white, that drink lots of beer and wine. Don’t screw with Oregon. First of all, great city, Portland, as I’ve told half this company, most underrated city in America. It’s the French Riviera from Fourth of July to October. Perfect weather. Great people. NBA team. Seahawks up the road. Unbelievable wine. The coast. Oregon’s like a four-seed. Oregon’s really nice.”
His Terrible, Awkward Interview With Jim Harbaugh
Last month, Jim Harbaugh called into Cowherd’s radio show and it got pretty awkward.
After asking a few standard questions, to which Harbaugh answered in short phrases, things got a little weird between Harbaugh and Cowherd. When it finally became apparent that the interview was going nowhere, Cowherd and Harbaugh had this blunt exchange.
Cowherd: "This seems terribly difficult, Jim. This is just not working. I love you to death. I really do. But it seems like we're going nowhere with this. And I love you. I'm a huge Harbaugh fan."
Harbaugh: "What can I do to make your interview better?"
Cowherd: "I'm just asking open-ended questions, and you have not much to say. I want you to sell your program. That's why I bring Urban on and I bring [Steve Sarkisian]. I love you guys. I want you to sell your program."
*Awkward Silence*
Cowherd: "Listen, I love ya. It's not working. I appreciate you stopping by, Jim Harbaugh."
Yes, it was an uncomfortable interview for all parties involved, but did Cowherd really have to just abruptly end the interview like that?
His Borderline Racist Hatred For John Wall
It’s known that a lot of NBA players like to keep things loose before games, it helps them from being too locked in. So when Colin Cowherd decided to absolutely go in on John Wall after Wall decided to do the Dougie before his first home game as a rookie, it came off as condescending and gratuitous.
Cowherd, being the eloquent pundit that he is, compared Wall's dance before a game to robbing a bank. In addition to comparing him to thieves, Cowherd also harped on Wall’s near triple-double the night before (29-13-9) because the rookie had eight turnovers, while also waxing poetic about Rajon Rondo’s 17-assist, no turnover performance. All of which was unfair because Wall was a rookie entering the league who had yet to play five games, whereas Rondo was a championship-winning starting point guard entering his fourth season.
He then continued his to demonstrate his skewed logic by going so far as to imply that Wall doesn’t have the adequate IQ to be a successful NBA point guard: “Point guard is like the quarterback. It's an IQ-judgment position," Cowherd said. "The great ones are not about themselves. They're about the others. Leadership is IQ, it's not skills."
Eventually, Cowherd added the icing to the cake of ignorance when he imitated how he thought John Wall spoke: “J-Wow’s 37-second, ‘yodawg, look at me, I’m the man’ and his wild out of control style…”
Of course, Cowherd was never disciplined for toeing the line of tasteful in his criticism of Wall, but it definitely wasn’t his finest moment. However, Wall has flourished, resurrecting the Wizards franchise by leading them to two straight playoff appearances, while also appearing in consecutive All-Star games.
His Completely Bullsh*t Rant Against Single-Mother Families
For some odd reason, Cowherd has seemingly turned himself into a sociologist of sorts, occasionally imparting his wisdom when it comes to sports and family.
When talking about John Wall (again), Cowherd went on a mini-rant about how quarterbacks and point guards need to have fathers and strong families to succeed—as if those things are directly correlated to athletic success: “Let me tell you something I’m a big believer in, when it comes to quarterbacks and point guards: Who’s your dad? Who’s your dad? Because I like confrontational players, I don’t like passive-aggressive. Strong families equal strong leaders. Talent: overrated. Leadership: underrated.”
So, to recap, Cowherd believes that families without dads present cannot be strong, and that quarterbacks and point guards cannot be great unless they have dads around. Oh, and that talent is so overrated in sports.
His Deeply Disrespectful Take on the Late Sean Taylor
When former Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor was fatally shot by burglars during a home invasion back in 2007, the entire sports world was in mourning. The NFL Network aired Sean Taylor: A Football Life in his memory and reporters approached the story in an appropriate manner.
Though Taylor had a couple brushes with the law and fines for misconduct, he was remembered for his accomplishments on the field. At least, to everyone but Cowherd who deliberated on his radio show: "Sean Taylor, great player has a history of really really bad judgment—really, really bad judgment. Cops, assault, spitting, DUI. I’m supposed to believe his judgment got significantly better in two years, from horrible to fantastic? ‘But Colin he cleaned up his act.’ Well, yeah, just because you clean the rug doesn’t mean you got everything out. Sometimes you’ve got stains, stuff so deep it never, ever leaves...Just because somebody cleans the rugs doesn’t mean there aren’t stains. No matter what those commercials, OxiClean, tell you on cable TV, some stains you can’t get out. And if you have bad judgment for 23 years of your life, even if you clean it up, your judgment doesn’t get great over night."
Three years later, after the murder and crude remarks by Cowherd, he was quoted in James Andrew Miller's ESPN oral history, Those Guys Have All the Fun, and did not apologize for the comments that were borderline racist. Instead, he said:
“Now, with the Sean Taylor thing, my superior, Mo Davenport, an African American, listened to it and had no problem with it. A lot of it was turned into a racial issue. ‘Insensitive.’ And I would say it again. Sean Taylor came out of the University of Miami with a reputation. I really leaned on African American journalists—Stephen A. Smith, Michael Wilbon—who were critical of him. This is a guy who had an SUV riddled with bullets several years earlier. His best friend told him, ‘Stay out of Miami.’
One of the comments that bothered people — people said, ‘He turned his life around.’ And I came out and said, ‘Hey, a lot of times you clean the carpet, but you don’t get all the stains out.’ And people are like, ‘What does that mean?’ Well, just because you turn your life around doesn’t mean everybody else is going to accept your apology. I mean, Sean had made a lot of enemies in his life apparently.”
His Ripped-Off Wonderlic Test Segment
Cowherd, as seen, is no stranger to blogs. And the M Zone is no exception. In fact, in one of his shows during 2006, he loved the M Zone blog so much he decided to use their material, word for word, and not give them credit.
Taking questions from the M Zone’s parody Wonderlic test (which is most known in the sports world for it’s use by the NFL when scouting), Cowherd ripped off not one, not two, but eight questions from the blog.
The worst part? When he was emailed about the incident asking for credit he replied:
“WE WERE SENT IT....WE HAD NO IDEA..BUT THE INCESSANT WHINING...MEANS I WON'T GIVE YOU CREDIT NOW..GET OVER IT”
His Beef With Dan Patrick
Come at the king, you best not miss. These were words that Cowherd should've heeded when he decided to call out ESPN O.G. Dan Patrick in early February this year. Cowherd—who was discussing the admirable work ethic of Jim Rome, Skip Bayless, and, of course, himself—made the claim that Patrick needs "35 producers to fill a segment" on his self-titled radio show, adding that Patrick doesn't work as hard as Rome. "Not even close," Cowherd said.
Patrick wasn't having it.
Responding on his own radio show the very next day, Patrick clapped back, saying:
I don’t have 35 producers. I don’t work at the Worldwide Leader. I do have two producers here who did work on Colin’s show, and the one thing that I do is I give credit to my producers on the air. It’s not a one-man show. All the people behind the scenes who help out on Colin’s show — they don’t get any recognition.
[...]
We don’t have ESPN muscles. I had them for 18 years. Leave ESPN. Get out and do what I do. Try it. Try a radio network, maybe a simulcast, maybe a column for Sports Illustrated. Host the Olympics, Football Night in America, and Sports Jeopardy. Try that, and then we can discuss work ethic.
Got 'eem! As he moves on the from Bristol, Conn., will Cowherd be able to survive without his "ESPN muscles?" We can only wait and see.