Report: Maine Hosts Fired After Calling HS Girls Overweight

RADIO ONLINE | Sunday, January 16, 2022

WHOU-FM

WHOU-FM/Houlton, ME, which puts a fringe signal into Presque Isle, fired Jim Carter and Steve Shaw on Thursday after receiving complaints from parents about the comments the two made regarding the teen girls' weight, the reported the Portland Press-Herald. The duo made the comments after viewing a live stream of a varsity basketball game between Easton High School and Central Aroostook High School on a hot mic. Neither realized the mic was live.

"Two girls out here extremely overweight," said one of the announcers. "Awful." Laughter the followed the disparaging comments reported the newspaper. Shaw then talked about finding "uniforms that fit the girls," and Carter singled out one of the girls by her uniform number. "Wow," he said, according to NBC affiliate WCSH. "Would you look at her?"

Easton Superintendent Mark Stanley said in a statement, "We're a small school up here, we know all our kids really well, we're lucky in that regard, and so we know every single player that was on that team being talked about. I think anger is probably the reaction everybody had when they saw and heard what happened."

Both Shaw and Carter had provided commentary for the past month, the Press-Herald said. Shaw is a former athletic director at Easton and Carter a former coach from another school.

Parent Joseph Leach, who has a daughter who plays for one of the teams felt "mostly shock," according to the Press-Herald. "I was home after the games and somebody shared the video with us and I instantly knew it was Jim Carter and Steve Shaw talking, and I really just couldn't believe what they were saying, honestly," he said.