ESPN’s Rachel Nichols is one of the few sports journalists on the planet it’s downright silly to cross.
Unafraid to ask the tough questions and dig on the most sensitive issues reaching well beyond a simple game, Nichols gently laid down the ground rules recently when coworker Brian Windhorst slipped up on air.
Here’s the video:
@bustedcoverage windy… pic.twitter.com/zQXXrJ54Ju
— … (@Cleveland_4life) June 10, 2016
Long story short, Windhorst busted out a somewhat not-safe-for-television phrase, which is about as much of an explanation folks will find here. Nichols fired back right away: “That is not true and not something you should say on television. Will you take that back, please?”
Windhorst did, of course, then fessed up he didn’t actually know what it meant:
“This [happened] because Brian doesn’t exactly know what that phrase means. Right? Am I correct in that?”
“I guess I don’t,” he said. “Based on your reaction, I would say that I don’t.”
Look, no harm no foul here. Windhorst clearly slipped with a saying he truly didn’t grasp and it was all in fun.
More important, here, is how Nichols handled the situation. She could have tore him down and created a miserable scene that would have been much more notable and likely gone viral. Instead, she put on a case study of how to handle an iffy on-air situation in the most professional way possible.
Or in other words, yet another example as to why she’s one of the best at what she does.