When Bill Cunningham and his WLW-AM bosses remained silent after Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Huggins uttered an offensive gay slur on May 8, 2023, I asked this question: Is “The Big One” big enough to apologize?
Now we know the answer is “No.”
Huggins knew he did something very bad on the public airwaves — OUR AIRWAVES — licensed for use by 50,000-watt WLW-AM, which used to promote itself as “The Big One.”
Within hours the former University of Cincinnati basketball coach — then coaching for West Virginia University — issued an apology for using “a completely insensitive and abhorrent phrase.”
Cunningham said nothing.
Two days later the contrite coach issued a second apology for saying those “awful words … (and) the hurt they unfairly caused others.”
Cunningham said nothing.
Two years ago today, about 1:40 p.m., the talk show host called Huggins live on the air, when former Huggins’ UC assistant coach Steve Moeller was Cunningham’s studio guest. Cunningham — a Catholic and 1970 Xavier grad — was yucking it up with Huggins on "The Stooge Report," a breezy discussion of topical issues with sports reporter Bill "Seg" Dennision during Cunningham's popular noon-3 p.m. show. Huggins recalled a Crosstown Shootout game when Xavier students threw rubber penis sex toys from the stands. It promoted this exchange:
CUNNINGHAM: "It was 'Transgender Night,' wasn't it?"
HUGGINS: "It was the Crosstown Shootout night, yeah. No, what it was was all those f---, the Catholic f---, I think."
CUNNINGHAM [LAUGHING]: "All right!"
HUGGINS: "They were angry because they didn't have one."
CUNNINGHAM [LAUGHING]: "Steve, your comments about Bob Huggins? Is he the best?"
MOELLER: "He's the best!"
CUNNINGHAM: "The best ever!"
Later that Monday afternoon Huggins issued a statement saying: “I deeply apologize to the individuals I have offended, as well as to the Xavier University community, the University of Cincinnati and West Virginia University. As I have shared with my players over my 40 years of coaching, there are consequences for our words and actions, and I will fully accept any coming my way. I am ashamed and embarrassed and heartbroken for those I have hurt. I must do better, and I will.”
Cunningham said nothing.
Two days later, the contrite coach again apologized for “the awful words” spoken on WLW-AM: “I deeply regret my actions… It pains me to know that I have let so many people down. I have no excuse for the language I used.”
Then Huggins suffered the consequences for his words. He was swiftly punished that Wednesday by West Virginia, which cut his pay by $1 million; suspended him for three games, and ordered him to attend sensitivity training. (Huggins lost his job following his arrest for driving under the influence in Pittsburgh six weeks later.)
Cunningham said nothing.
He filled his show that week with long telephone interviews, and didn’t take many (or any?) calls. Then he left town on a previously scheduled 10-day trip to the Holy Land. Cunningham said nothing about the Huggins incident when he returned.
I still have the same questions I posed two years ago:
- Why weren't Huggins' awful words bleeped by Cunningham or his producer? Wasn't the live talk show on a seven-second delay?
- Why haven't Cunningham or the station apologized for broadcasting the ugly words on the public airwaves? Or apologized for Cunningham's raucous laughter after Huggins said the toxic word, which ended Thom Brennaman's Reds TV career five years ago? (Brennaman apologized multiple times and finally resumed his Cincinnati broadcast career last month — on WLW-AM — as morning host when Mike McConnell retired.
- Why was all the focus on Huggins? Xavier President Colleen Hanycz two years ago said that Huggins' "deplorable mischaracterizations and homophobic slurs directed toward our LBGQT+ and Catholic communities were repulsive and offensive." What about Cunningham laughing at what Hanycz called "hateful words" on the station which broadcasts XU basketball games? Has the radio flagship station for the Reds, Bengals, Bearcats and Musketeers been laughing all the way to the bank?
Proclaiming himself "the Great American," Cunningham has ridiculed and insulted anyone for years who disagreed with his conservative views: Democrats, liberals, environmentalists, progressives and particularly politicians named Biden, McCain, Clinton and Obama. That's been his schtick for years.
But laughing at an ugly slur? Doesn't that cross the line? And then immediately declaring that Huggins is “the best ever?”
Why isn’t "The Big One" big enough to admit it made a horrible mistake allowing the word to go out over the airwaves? Are the folks at WLW-AM afraid that if they told the truth — and acknowledged that word is repulsive and definitely no laughing matter — that loyal listeners would tune to another station, the way Donald Trump supporters left Fox News Channel after they were told the truth about the 2020 election instead of what they wanted to hear? Like the guy who read my Cunningham column two years ago and sent me this message: ”Oh shut up cup cake. Woke media folks like yourself are the problem.”
Questions, questions, questions. Two years later, still so many unanswered questions, questions questions.
I’m not expecting answers soon. Cunningham announced in March that he’s postponed his retirement again. He had previously said he’d retire after WLW-AM’s 100th anniversary in 2022. Then he pushed it back to his 40th anniversary at the station in August 2023. Now he says he’s staying until the end of President Donald Trump’s term in office. Cunningham would turn 81 a month after the 2028 presidential election.
Just in case I had missed it, I messaged Cunningham this week to ask if he had ever apologized for airing Huggins’ offensive comments and laughing at them. I never got a response.
Again, Cunningham said nothing.
John Kiesewetter's reporting is independent. Cincinnati Public Radio only edits his articles for style and grammar.
