Radio talk-show host Anita Marks, billed as ?The Ultimate Sports Chick,? apologized on her show Wednesday evening for comments she made the day before about San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman.
On Marks? Tuesday show, which airs on ESPN Radio 1300 AM from 4 to 7 p.m., she referred to Merriman, who is black and was recently suspended by the NFL for steroids, as a “juice monkey.”
“I used a phrase that pertains to an athlete that uses steroids. It was not a racist remark,” Marks said near the top of her show Wednesday. “I didn?t mean anything by it in regards to the color of his skin.”
Marks, a former professional football player from Florida, has been on the air in Baltimore since May. Her on-air comments Tuesday were not the first racially questionable ones that she has made in the media. In a Q&A piece that appeared in now-defunct CTN Magazine in August of 2003, she was quoted as saying: “I did not realize how racially segregated Boston is until I visited with the New England Storm football team. There was only one black player! Let?s face it, [African-Americans] are more athletically inclined than caucasians.”
On Wednesday, CBS Radio Baltimore vice president Dave LaBrozzi addressed the comments with Marks, and both agreed that an on-air apology was necessary.
“I think her apology was appropriate, and I do not think she meant any harm in it,” LaBrozzi said. “We had a conversation and thought she should address it on the air, and it will end there.”
Marks followed her apology by stating that another radio station “threw me under the bus,” referring to Rob Long at WNST 1570 AM.
“She apologized. It is on her conscience,” Long said. “I only asked for an apology. I never asked for a sincere one. She basically laid under the bus.”
While Long is familiar with the use of “juice monkey” pertaining to a person who takes steroids, he said he does not think that makes it appropriate to use on the radio.
