Berlin – In the end, Jon Gruden himself saw that it was no longer wearable. For years, the popular head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders from the NFL professional football league had sent racist, misogynist and gay-hostile emails, and on Monday evening the 58-year-old resigned only before his inevitable expulsion.
“I love the Raiders and don’t want to be a distraction,” said Gruden in one of those statements that have already become standard for scandals like this. He also claimed: “I’m sorry, I never wanted to hurt anyone.” Hardly anyone would believe the eloquent Gruden, who is nicknamed “Chucky” based on the movie killer doll of the same name.
Grudens discriminatory emails
The discriminatory emails come from the time when Gruden commented on the “Monday Night Football” game for the TV station ESPN (2009 to 2018). Previously, he was head coach of the Oakland-based Raiders (1998 to 2001) and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2002 to 2008). He led the latter to victory in the Super Bowl in 2003 – against the Raiders.
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal revealed that Gruden had racially insulted the head of the NFLPA players’ union. In one of the emails in 2011 he wrote about DeMaurice Smith, a black man, that he had “lips the size of Michelin tires”. The NFL condemned these and other statements as “appalling, horrific and completely contrary to its own values”.
New York Times is up to speed
Gruden initially talked himself out of it, emphasized that he was ashamed and of course did not have any “traits of racism” in him. On Monday, however, the New York Times followed up: It published emails from 2011 to 2018 in which ESPN expert Gruden described the powerful NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as a “fagot” and “pussy”.
Gruden also insulted club owners, coaches and journalists in his emails, which were discovered by the NFL in the course of investigating the grievances among the Washington football team.