Read Jack Harry’s Lips:
“Gayhawks!”
And click on image to watch him say it
Jumping beans. Jakarta. Java. Javelin…
These are all words that start with the letter “J.”
Grandpa. Gross. Golf. Groundhog.
These are all words that start with the letter “G.”
Sometimes, you can get a “g” word that starts with a soft “g” like gel, or geriatric, but most “g” words start with a hard “g.” You know, like “Gross grandpa guy gets gays’ goats.”
I explain these grade-school linguistic variations not because I don’t think you don’t know them already—again, they’re things most of us learned in Kindergarten (hard “g,” by the way)—but because KSHB 41’s Jack Harry thinks we’re all idiots, apparently.
In case you missed it, Harry was hosting his Sunday night sports wrap a couple of days ago, and, when discussing the Jayhawks with fellow broadcaster Frank Boal, he went off script and blurted out “Gayhawks” in reference to KU’s basketball team. You know, “Gayhawks!” Something that a second grader might scream at another child on the playground in the midst of a heated exchange.
“Gayhawks.”
Boal pressed on without acknowledging the juvenile comment, and that was that.
Enter: the internet.
I first saw it on Twitter, replete with said clip, and then it was all over 610AM, and people were sharing it to Facebook and I’m fairly certain Barrack Obama may have mentioned it in his eulogy to Nelson Mandela.
That’s kind of how things work in this day in age. One minute, you’re posting a video clip of your dog farting because it sounds like he’s saying “Hello” to YouTube, and the next, you’re being interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel because dog farts are hilarious.
Jack Harry should know this.
But he doesn’t, because he’s decrepit and stupid, a 115 year old man in a cheap suit with a vapid face and an empty skull to match.
After the story started making the rounds, he was forced by KSHB to make a video apology. He said—with as much sincerity as he could muster—that he didn’t say what we all heard him say. That it was “misheard.” He explained that he would NEVER say something so insensitive in nature and blah, blah, blah, I guess we’re all fucking idiots, guys!
See, it’s ridiculous that he said what he said—what we all know he said. You can’t say this kind of thing in this day and age, even if you don’t intend on it being offensive. I get it. Harry wasn’t ACTUALLY suggesting that the whole men’s basketball team prefers the company of other men. He wasn’t saying that at all. Something slipped out past his baked, lizard lips that he didn’t mean to let slip. It happens. That doesn’t make it okay, but it’s fine. We’ve all said shit that we’d never want repeated in public. We’re human.
Where Harry REALLY shit the bed, however, was by failing to admit his error.
Instead of issuing a REAL apology—one where he explained that he said something stupid in the heat of the moment, and he regrets it deeply—he said that we all misheard him.
Because we are all also 115 years old and we all need our hearing checked. Because, with these newfangled TV machines, sometimes the audio comes and goes, right? Because he would NEVER say something like that. He knows plenty of queers, and they’re just fine by him. (So long as, you know, they don’t touch him and give him their gay or whatever.)
It’s really the fact that he’s so out of touch with reality that really needs to be addressed. If he can’t stop himself from blurting ridiculous, offensive shit on live television, perhaps he has no business being a part of said medium.
And if he insists on continuing to broadcast, and he can’t keep his slurs to himself, he needs to at least learn to man up and admit his mistakes. Trying to convince me that I didn’t hear what I know I heard is embarrassing not only him, but the viewing public as well.
Hang it up, Jack. Your best days (assuming you ever had any) are long gone.
Follow me on Twitter (where Jack Harry has me blocked!) @StanfordWhistle
Please surf over to greghallkc.com if you want to see every imaginable comment on this subject. They are far more ridiculous than JH’s remark. Move along, folks. Nothing to see here.
Haha. I’ll have to check it out.
Fruedian slip.
He was just saying what most MU people want to yell at the top of their frickin’ lungs every time your average brain damaged KU fan bleats about ‘their great bassetball team’.
They should just fire him because he’s giant f*cking piece of sh1t. Who cares what he did or didn’t say.
Ha! Definitely not the first time I’ve heard that.
HC said it best, I don’t care about what he said, but if this comment can help get him removed from our airwaves, I’m all for it. This clown was a hack 30 years ago and his grumpy old man schtick has always been tiresome. Shit can him now and send him off with a gross of non-filters to wherever his old sweetheart, Norm Stewart, resides and let them spend their remaining years swapping Melvin Booker anecdotes and bitching about KU.
I said that?
Don’t think so. I really don’t care one way or another what happens to Harry or that he uttered a tired, lame derogatory term for “Jayhawks”
He wasn’t the first to say that and he won’t be the last. He just wasn’t smart enuff or quick enuff on his feet to know better than to do it on the air.
And he wasn’t man enough to own up to it…which as brandon says, is lame. But his presence on the airwaves (or not) won’t affect me one in the slightest.
I think I was the HC he was referring to.
oh– of COURSE he shouted ‘GAYhawks’ — why would he suddenly shout ‘jayhawks?’- he was going for a joke… didn’t work..it happens.. been there
let the powers that be decide his fate , I don’t care– but that sleazy denial of something sooo self-evident – on tape – is just ludicrous,and.. cowardly.
Man up, Jack – admit it, apologize, and move on..it’s okay with me. –
but this weaseling out – I’ll never listen to him in the same way again
Jack Harry was done about ten years back, he WAS GOING TO BE FIRED, the station thought he was too old, out of touch, and looked like a 1989 high school metal shop teacher. Maybe. Then a miracle happened, Jack started jumping all over the Chiefs, and was hard on CEO/PRES/GM/ CARL PETERSON…he called him out…as did Whitlock and myself prior to that on other similar issues involving us and the Chiefs…Harry had no real relationship with Carl..but IT WORKED…the fans were fed up…and so it went it became a nightly attack…the first conservative TV show to openly say THE CHIEFS STINK AND CARL SUCKED AND NEEDED TO GO…it went on for a couple years…Jack got a new haircut, clothes etc…and it became JACK’S SMACK…a HIT…
he saved his job and career…and I say ‘GOOD FOR JACK.” You all loved him then, so he made a mistake….so what, not the end of the world…let it go..give the guy a break…he’s earned it…you all loved him a minute ago. Why not now. How soon we forget…
Hey, people do make mistakes but…
I think the point most people familiar with the situation are hung up on is that Harry didn’t just admit it, apologize and move on.
Frankly, who hasn’t heard the term “Gayhawk” or “Rock Chalk Chickenhawk”
Judging from the shit eating grin Harry had on his face – and the obvious delight he took is raising his voice to emphasize the word – he prolly thought he could get away with it.
A miscalculation, to be sure.
And judging from the way Frank Boal took it in but resisted the temptation to laugh at Harry’s obvious joke, he at least recognized that it was a television news no-no.
So in a sense, I’m with Craig, because other than the PC World we dwell in today, it wasn’t a life (or job) threatening event.
That said, lying (fibbing?) about it afterwards and hiding behind the fact that it was very slightly indiscernible, is pretty lame.
If Harry were on the national stage and had done this, I’m pretty sure the station wouldn’t be tap dancing around it like they are. But that’s just me…
Yes a bit of much to do over nothing…hey if KU basketball doesn’t get straightened out, WOW the season of Greatness may turn into the season of WTF? This team has more talent than other KU team ever has but clearly is not ready on a nightly or daily bases to play at the level they should…out of whack..hope they fix it…could this be a year they don’t win the Big 12, or maybe even not get invited to the DANCE? I SUSPECT THEY WILL lose 7 to 10 games this year, from this ‘not being ready’…but still go to the dance and not win the Big 12…they will be like a six seed or below..unless Bill gets this fixed and soon..hope so..
Baby jay is a twink.
He is gay.
No really. He is OUT-out gay. Dates MEN. Hands ass, very close-GAY MEN. Like shows-up-at-Sol Cantina-with-his-young-boy-toy-of-the-season-who-blows-him-for-Patron-shots, gay. Nobody knows this? Am I the only one that goes out and sees the world while everyone else sits and types about the world?!?!
BroSun
Takes one to know one is what I always like to say Brother Sunday.
Takes one to know one.
And just say NO when he offers you shots of Patorn, Brother Sunday.
Just say no.
I’d drink with Jack. F yeah! No worries there – no matter what team he bats for. Patron sucks. Any reader knows BROSUN loves Rumple. WTF is wrong with you?”!
The reason we’re idiots is we allow people to shit all over our rights to free speech so they can push a particular political agenda. If the term Gayhawks didn’t convey in the vast, vast majority of his viewing audience’s mind what he thought of KU’s wimpy BB squad this year he wouldn’t have used it. So now it’s shame on him and shame on us for actually understanding what the point was of using the term. Well piss on ’em, I’m not giving up my freedoms just so I can be hip and up-to-date.
But it doesn’t stop there, you jump on this old guy, but I’ve yet to see one article jumping all over the bigots in the KC media at The Pitch, The Star, KMBC (the worst of the bunch), KMBZ and KCTV5 when they completely dropped all standards of journalism so they could bash people of faith.
After witnessing two hoaxes involving waiters allegedly receiving nasty notes so they could have a little private fundraiser, the bigots at the aforementioned media outlets actually went nuts over a story about an anonymous waiter (unless you wanted to go give him a big tip), an alleged nasty note and a couple we know nothing about, if they even exist.
What was provided was a note allegedly written by the unknown couple (just like the other two hoaxes) that was just too good to be true. First, it praised the waiter for his wonderful service (just in case you might have thought he didn’t deserve a tip) and then in prose not heard outside the Phelps compund (but which every religious bigot in the world assumes is how people of faith talk) they allegedly stiffed the waiter for his tip and denounced him for his lifestyle (unless he was discussing his love life with random patrons how would they have known?). Isn’t that precious?
Adding to the clues that this might be a hoax was the fact that the stories that mentioned people who supported him (and his fundraising efforts) all featured the same homosexual couple who just happened to be involved in a homosexual advocacy group. Isn’t that a coincidence? The advocacy couple were the only ones named in the stories. Not the waiter, not the alleged couple. Indeed, the only reason this hasn’t been proven to be a hoax is that not one of the morons at KMBC, KMBZ, KCTV5, The Pitch, and The Pitch story regurgitated in The Star demanded enough evidence to either prove, or disprove the story.
So spare me the whining over whatever Jack said when it seems to me the pathetically non-existent journalistic standards of most of KC’s media outlets might have a little higher priority.
I rarely agree with you John, but you hit the nail on the head with your comment on Wilson’s piece on Hobby Lobby. We are all hypocrites. We all have standards of what we think is right but none of us are 100% consistent with those standards in what we say or do. Not proud of it but it’s a human trait.
Aww….the poor “people of faith”….always being picked on. Who’s the whining one?
Do you have an argument somewhere, or are you just another stupid troll?
Look, Jack was confused. I mean, here is a video of an all gay Hockey Team in Chicago (The City of Big Shoulders, you know…).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L64ABFtgekc#t=92
No kidding, this is an actual gay hockey team. The video is pretty funny. I laughed at the video, so that of course, would be a character flaw.
If these guys can make jokes with a gay theme, then maybe Jack should catch a little slack.
Suck it, DUDE… PUN intended.
http://nightlifekc.com/gallery/012513-stolen-winnebagos-brewtop/photo/22
http://nightlifekc.com/gallery/012513-stolen-winnebagos-brewtop/photo/70
http://nightlifekc.com/gallery/012513-stolen-winnebagos-brewtop/photo/7
Having a nonexistent bird for a mascot of a team name based on murderers and rapists — classy.
They should be happy to be called Gayhawks.
You forgot a big-beaked bird that wears corrective shoes too.