Marshall’s head football coach Bob Pruett might not sit around in his office thinking about how he hates all black people… but that doesn’t mean that calling Ohio State players “a bunch of Mandingos” isn’t racist.

Explains Charles Farrell, director of Rainbow Sports, “The Mandingos (of West Africa) were known as big, strong people. But their size and strength was an asset only for doing the work of slaves. You went out and said, ‘Let’s get ourselves a Mandingo because they’re big and strong and they can pick cotton all day long or they can chop wood all day long.’ Even if you’re trying to look for the original Mandingo connotation, it’s totally misplaced. I think when coaches do this, they don’t have a good sense of history. Nor do they have the proper type of respect for African Americans and their history because it is also a slave term. I see no place in football to refer to anybody as a Mandingo warrior. The usage is at best misplaced and at worst very derogatory.”

So basically what Bob Pruett was saying is, “Wow, those sure are some big scary negroes.”

Pruett did apologize. “I used it in an effort to explain superior physical ability. I was trying to be complimentary. I would consider it complimentary if someone called me a (Mandingo) warrior. I profusely apologize. I didn’t mean it to be derogatory to anyone.”

Someone complimenting Bob Pruett by calling him a “mandingo” is, quite possibly, the least likely thing to ever happen on planet Earth. I don’t think anyone is ever going to approach Bob Pruett and say, “Damn, you look like a huge black slave.” And if they did, I don’t think he’d be taking it as a compliment.

But, like I said, I don’t think Bob Pruett hates black people, and I don’t think he meant anything derogatory. However, that doesn’t mean that the statement itself wasn’t racist, and it also doesn’t mean that Bob Pruett isn’t massively ignorant. I’m glad he apologized.

Well, that was fun. The Nets managed to drag themselves up to respectability for a while there, but I guess everyone got tired of that. The Nets are on the fast track back to suckville.

A deal has been discussed that would send Jason Kidd to Portland for Shareef Abdur-Rahim. I’m not a Shareef hater. I like his game, I think he’s a team player, and he deserves the chance to play for a good team. But if you’re trading one of the handful of players in the NBA who are truly game-changers, you need to get a little bit more back than Shareef.

If the Nets could get Sebastian Telfair thrown into the deal, however… that could change things. It seems rare now that a point guard gets drafted into the league for his passing more than his scoring, but Telfair fits that description, and I think that’s a good thing. The local guy would also certainly help sell some tickets, especially if the Nets move to Brooklyn. If they’re intent on trading Kidd, they’re probably not going to get a lot in return for him right now, with his knee having just been cut. We’ll see what happens.

A woman named Daphne Charlemagne is suing Toronto Raptors guard Morris Peterson for infecting her with genital herpes when he slanged her four years ago.

This, I’m guessing, is going to cut into the amount of play that Morris Peterson gets. If NBA hoes do their homework… then MoPete can probably forget about the groupie love. Maybe it’d be considered cool to get genital herpes from Kevin Garnett or Dirk Nowitzki… but not from Morris Peterson. There’s no glory in that.

Miss Charlemagne, who probably isn’t getting a lot of action herself, wants $1.5 million, along with $2 grand a month for the rest of her life to pay for the herbal supplements that treats her condition. $1.5 mil is pretty steep for genital herpes. I dunno. For $1.5 mil, I’d consider letting Morris Peterson give me genital herpes.

And I think he should probably do some time. You can’t throw chairs into groups of people. There’s always some gray area in right and wrong, but chucking folding chairs into groups of people is pretty clearly on the bad side of the right/wrong continuum.

Are all baseball players pussies, or does it just seem that way? All the time, benches clear, and the tough guys run out of their dugouts looking mean, but no one ever throws a punch. The preferred method of revenge is to throw a ball at someone from 60 feet away. And now, to settle disputes with fans, we throw chairs at them. Perfect.

This guy’s a fan, he’s sitting next to the bullpen… he’s allowed to heckle. Buck Showalter is saying that he was saying some nasty things, but it doesn’t really matter… What justifies tossing a chair at him? Even if he was getting into some seriously vile stuff, it’s on the player to either sit there and take it, or get security to do something about it. If you’re going to be a professional athlete, this is something you’re going to have to deal with. Right or wrong, it’s going to be there. If a player can’t take it… maybe he should try another profession.

BYU’s football team not only got rolled at the hands of Stanford this weekend, but they couldn’t get out of town without a few polygamy jokes, too. That’s not good.

You’re beating a team 37-10, and you have to get the band to throw in some polygamy jokes, too? Come on. It’s one thing for fans to make fun of each other, it’s one thing for me to sit in the stands and ask the left tackle how many offensive linemen he’s married to. But visiting fans at least deserve to sit there and watch the game without having their religion ridiculed. Is that too much to ask? If you go to a road game, you’re going to take some abuse… that’s a given. But it shouldn’t come from an official school organization like the band. That’s classless. Stanford should be embarrassed.

And since when do band kids get to make fun of anyone? Did I miss the memo that said band kids were all the sudden cool? From now on, stick to your fight songs, watch Drumline every day in your spare time, and tell some more zany band camp stories… and leave the insults to the liquored-up fans.