After years of looking at instant replay monitors in his job, Thom Brennaman doesn’t need a second look at the worst moment of his broadcasting career.
The disgraced former play-by-play announcer for the Cincinnati Reds said he feels shame for using an anti-gay slur when he was unaware his microphone was live returning from a commercial break. He was replaced in the middle of that game, suspended and resigned from his job with the Reds and Fox Sports Ohio in September. So, how many times has he replayed the moment in his head since August?
“Not one time,” Brennaman told Scott Sloan on 700 WLW, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Obviously, I wish it wouldn’t have happened. I’m ashamed that it did happen. I’m embarrassed. I embarrassed a lot of people. I embarrassed my family. I hurt my wife. I hurt my kids.
“Obviously, I hurt my career. But that’s further down the totem pole than hurting your family and embarrassing them. And I have two kids in high school here that have to deal with all that. And when they go to Google their dad — if they ever do — but if they do, I’m a homophobe.”
Brennaman has remained in the public eye during trying times and expressed gratitude for the “support and the grace and the willingness to forgive” he has received from the LGBTQ community.
“I’m not a homophobe,” he said. “And I know there a lot of people that’ll say, ‘Well you used that word, so that makes you a homophobe.’ And for those people, I get it, I understand. But since then, I’ve tried to be around and have been around and to listen and to learn and to grow from other people and realize the magnitude of the word that I used.
“And so you really have two choices: You can crawl into a hole and just hope everything goes away and disappears — that’s one route. And the other route is to try to get better. And if there is such a thing as trying to right a wrong — and I don’t know if there is or not, that’s for others to decide, it’s not for me to decide — that’s what I’m trying to do.”
Brennaman was removed from FOX’s NFL broadcast schedule before the season. He visited with his old crew last week when they came to town for the Giants game at the Bengals.
“I think it was the first time since all of this happened where it really hit me between the eyes of the things that I’m missing,” Brennaman said, “but more importantly the people that I’m missing in my job — my old job.”
Brennaman’s legacy as one of the great sports play-by-play voices of his era – it’s the family business, started by his father Marty’s career with the Reds – has been complicated by his word choice. He recently delivered a message to the West Virginia men’s basketball team about how using one slur – even on a social media post – can haunt you for the rest of your life.
“My goal is to help other people not make the same mistake that I did,” he said. “I also can’t apologize for trying to get a job. I have a wife and two children at home. I have to support them financially. And some might say, ‘Well this guy has made a ton of money his whole life.’ Look: The bottom line is I have to prove to my kids and my wife that their dad or their husband can get off the deck and try to get back after making a terrible mistake instead of running and hiding.”