Letter from the Editor
Each week IHSFW.com's Editor-in-Chief Vincent Johnson will be bringing his thoughts on topics & events in the world of high school football to this page. Read what he has to say, then feel free to chime in on the IHSFW.com message board to give your own thoughts.

What Year is it? 2006 AD or 12 PC (7/16/06)

It’s 2006 and in case nobody else has noticed, this whole politically correct trend is getting out of hand. Are you with me?

Well you should be, but the trend I’m talking about is the one that harps on everybody else’s supposed sensitivity to other’s politically incorrectness. Most notably sports talk radio. Now don’t get me wrong, newspaper guys do it, TV news sports guys do it too, but by shear numbers it's done by us. The supposedly macho men in sports, the alpha male. We're the audience for sports talk radio & sports pages across this country & across the globe. Today I'm giving it to the radio guys because nobody has the amount of airtime like the those guys do.

With under two months left till the kick off of the season, I’ve been trying to fill the void by listening to a lot of sports talk radio. Now with the whole Ozzie Gullein vs. Jay Marriotti thing, the term PC has been thrown around a lot.

In case you’re in that part of the state that roots for the St. Louis team and aren’t up on the state of affairs with the White Sox. Ozzie called Sun Time sports columnist Marriotti a three letter slur that starts with F used to describe someone of a homosexual nature.

So everybody is all up in arms, Ozzie get’s fined, suspended for a game and has to take sensitivity classes. End of story, right? Well yes, but now that my memory is so fresh, I keep hearing radio show hosts talking about how “everything’s so PC now”. Ever body has to watch what they say as not to offend. Radio guys aren’t sure what’s fair game and who’s alright to make fun of anymore. At least that’s what I’m hearing out of my speakers.

Well correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that once Monday Night Football anchor Howard Cosel, got fired for referring to a black player as a “monkey” while doing play by play live on national TV, I thought that was the beginning of the politically correct era. Or as I like to refer to it as “the time when people started talking about others like they wanted to be talked about themselves & stopped being little racist bigots”, but I will admit "PC" has a much better ring to it.

Yes, it’s 2006 AD, but in terms of PC bashing it’s year 12. I figured this out by adding on the number of years since the Jeremy Piven, classic, and politically correct bashing movie PCU was released. PCU, was a funning poke at living in this civilized world. A bunch of mostly has been or never were (male) athletes, broadcasting to the masses whining “woe is me, I have to watch who I offend” is not funny.

Hey guys, dropping the N-word, referring to woman as bitches & making fun of people based on religion, are just a few of the things that aren’t cool. If you’re going to whine about how “The Minority Man or Woman ” is holding you down, from holding them down, I’m not buying it.

Look, I’m not against sports talk radio. I love it, especially when they’re talking about sports. I generally don't believe that people like Ozzie Gullein are evil people because they use slurs to describe others that they have a beef with. While I'm sure Ozzie's lame excuse about what that word means in his country is a lie, what Ozzie learned as a kid from his coaches and peers may have a lot more to do with it.

Coaches and parents listen to yourself next time your at practice, in the weight room or in the stands and you're trying to motivate someone. While it might seem cute to tell the kids on the Pop-Warner team they're running like sissies or chastise the other team by calling them wussies, think of how that motivation works it's way into tougher words as a child progresses.

Vincent D. Johnson
Editor-in-Chief/IHSFW.com