Chicago mayor and Northwestern grad Rahm Emanuel didn’t mince any words after watching Vanderbilt guard Matthew Fisher-Davis make one of the worst mistakes in tournament history.
With his team up by one, Fisher-Davis erred and intentionally fouled Northwestern’s Bryant McIntosh to the line for what would prove to be the game’s winning free throws.
Fisher-Davis later admitted he screwed up the score while coaches and players from both teams came to his defense. But back in Chicago, the brash Emanuel twisted the knife a bit.
“The guy on Vanderbilt needs a witness-protection program,” Emanuel said during a radio show taping, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “How do you foul a guy when you’re up? I don’t get it. He must have had a brain freeze.”
If a Chicago politician advising someone to go into hiding over the result of a sporting event sounds familiar, it should. Back in 2003, then-governor Rod Blagojevich said Cubs fan Steve Bartman should enter witness protection and that he’d never receive a pardon after trying to catch a foul ball during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series.
(Blagojevich was sent to prison nine years later for attempting to sell Barack Obama’s vacated Senate seat and did not receive a pardon from Obama before he left office in January.)
Luckily for Fisher-Davis, it seems like most people recognize the moment for what it was: A bad mistake made by a great student-athlete whose great performance (22 points) was the only reason Vanderbilt was in a position to win the game.
“It was an honest mistake. He’s such a good player,” Northwestern coach Chris Collins told reporters in Salt Lake City. “I just feel badly for him.”
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel (AP)
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