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By Bill Simons
At a CBS press conference today, celebrated broadcaster Mary Carillo offered some compelling thoughts that whiplashed from the silly and inventive to the thoughtful and provocative.
For starters, Carillo sounded off about Maria Sharapova’s recent flirtation with a name-change to Maria “Sugarpova.” (All the while, Carillo herself insisted she won’t be changing her name to Mary “Sweet’NCari-Low.”) The prizewinning and glass ceiling-shattering broadcaster said, “It’s a real pity that Maria Sugarpova isn’t playing. I gotta tell you, I was all for that name change. Something so aggressively shameless, I was really ready to embrace it … I think she should have played the rest of her career with that name. I certainly know that I for one would have continued to call her Maria Sugarpova for the rest of her career.”
In a much more serious vein, Carillo later pivoted to reflect on the ongoing controversy related to Russia’s new anti-gay laws. She said, “It’s a travesty. I have a feeling a lot of people feel the same way. I was speaking with my friend Christine Brennan, because obviously she’s been to probably as many or more Olympics than I’ve been to, and she feels like this could be the legacy of [USOC Chief] Jacques Rogge, giving the Olympics to China and Russia … These are [countries] with long records of human rights violations, and it’s a real pity. I don’t believe in a boycott, I don’t think it would serve its purpose. A lot of athletes lose their platform, and all these athletes deserve to be there. I’m just not a big fan of a boycott idea … I worked for NBC during the Olympics, and there’ve already been big discussions on how this is going to be handled. It will certainly be a topic of discussion, to say the least. I just wish that Olympic cities really had to support and embrace the Olympic ideal, and clearly [Russian] president [Vladimir] Putin isn’t doing that.”
As for whether the tennis community, which obviously has a close connection with Russia, will speak out on the issue, Carillo said, “Everybody who feels strongly about it should speak out. My friend Martina Navratilova has some opinions about it [laughs]. A lot of people do. Rennae Stubbs has written about it as well. This is important stuff. I cannot imagine that many people can abide by this … I don’t think you’re supposed to allow cities to host [when they have not lived up to the Olympic ideal]. It should stand for something. I really hope things change in the coming months.”
