Miami radio host fired after putting $1,000 bounty on Florida State’s Timmy Jernigan
Miami sports talk host and former Hurricane player Dan Sileo was fired on Monday after he tweeted a picture of Florida State's Timmy Jernigan making a "U" with his hands and offering a bounty to any Miami player who took Jernigan out.
Here's the tweet, which was deleted:
here's the Dan Sileo tweet's been rat-holed. pic.twitter.com/WypJqMqYPi
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) November 3, 2013
Sileo says that the tweet was a joke, and if it was, it's a poorly done one at best given the scrutiny and punishments placed on the New Orleans Saints in the wake of bounty allegations on its defense. Sileo was a member of the 1986 Miami football team.
His former employer,WMEN 640 AM, sent out the following statement.
"As a result of Dan Sileo's action on his personal twitter account on November 3, 2013, 640 WMEN has terminated his independent contractor relationship with the station. The ownership, staff and management of WMEN-640 do not condone his actions which have no place in sports."
Plus, this is not a first offense. In fact, it's the third time he's been fired in the past 20 months. In March, he was suspended and subsequently fired from another Miami radio station for sexist tweets he directed at Fox's Erin Andrews, and was fired from a Tampa radio station in 2012 after he called three black football players "monkeys."
And let's be honest; Jernigan is far from the first to trash talk a rival team with its own hand-gesture. How many opposing players have done the Gator chomp mockingly or flashed the Hook'Em Horns sign upside down?
On his Twitter account, Sileo said that he was shocked at the backlash, that he's hired a private cop and that he and his family are in hiding because of death threats from Florida State fans.
Will he get another job? If he was popular enough to receive a third position after the first two terminations, it's (scarily) hard to fathom that he'll be called out on strikes after this one.
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is the assistant editor of Dr. Saturday on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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