Jim Rome knock-off Nick Wright wants to be able to sit in his box at the coliseum and wave a perfumed hankie as football players, the gladiators of modern times, ferociously hurl themselves at each other.
Wright, a host at 610-AM, made callous comments after a violent weekend in the NFL. Wright talked about the most recent spate of brain-rattling hits as an occupational hazard. "My dad's a fireman," Wright said, which made him a greater risk for lung cancer.
But calling Wright's dad "a fireman" is little like referring to Barack Obama as a "prominent Hawaiian."
Nick Wright's father is Louie Wright, the president of the Kansas City fire fighters union and a man who spends more time in dress slacks that he does in fire pants.
Local 42 is the city's most powerful union. Most recently, the union helped the Kansas City Fire Department take over the city's ambulance service.
Wright has served as the union president at various times in the last 30 years. The fire department came under criticism in 1992 when it was discovered that Wright, then a captain, and another union official were paying people to take their shifts while they held down other jobs. Wright, who had earned a law degree in 1991, was working as a law clerk. He took a leave of absence in the 1980s to get a master's degree in public administration at Harvard.
Though Louie Wright has gravitated toward office settings, Son left listeners with the impression that Dad spent his days polishing fire trucks and going on calls.
So when was the last time Louie Wright was stationed at a house and regularly responded to emergencies? Nick Wright didn't know. "You'd have to ask him that," he wrote in an e-mail following Monday's show.
Wright tells the Plog that he's attached to a station. But he declined to identify the fire fighting he does before grumbling about the coverage he and the union have received in The Pitch.
Updated [2:58 p.m.]: The original post said Louie Wright was in his late 50s. He is 60 years old. Also, the original post did not say that Nick Wright had talked about the risk of fire fighting in terms of contracting a lung ailment.
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