Here you go.....

As some Golden Eagle Fans have heard, Rob Jay, Sports Director of WLBT while doing a segment called "In The Trenches" on Sunday September 10th, made a an unflattering statement about Southern Mississippi.

Jay and Scott Vlahon were discussing who was the best football player in Mississippi. Vlahon stated Damion Fletcher turned in the best performance and Jay responded who is he? Vlahon stated to the effect Jay must not pay any attention to Southern Miss Athletics and Jay responded "Does anybody?"

This has upset some Golden Eagle fans basically shoring up the idea that WLBT has not and never will give Southern Miss coverage from their television station.

Eagletalk.net emailed Jay to get his side of the story and he responded with the following email and apology.

Don,

This is a lot of talk about nothing really. The segment was called, "In The Trenches" where 2 guys just talk about football or whatever. Scott Vlahon and I were discussing who was the best football player in the state of Mississippi up to this point. He was dogging my JSU choice and I was dogging his USM choice. There was no malice from me about USM. It was all in fun. The reason I said it was because I thought he would come back and say something about me or JSU. I certainly didn't mean to cause a stir about this, I have dogged JSU over the past 3 years much worse than saying, "does anybody" about USM. I have to remember how sensitive fans are when it comes to their schools. Again there was no harm meant and I apologize to USM and their fans for upsetting them.

Rob Jay
WLBT Sports

I've already sent Mr. Jay a pleasant e-mail about his ignorant comments on WLBT, and I've yet to hear back from him. Granted he did apologize on air, it was dumb of him to even say something like that on live television.

Glad to see he apologized - he needed to - but just an ounce of forethought could have saved him from this dilemma.