In case you missed it, the idiot-of-the-week award goes to Kirk Reynolds, former PR head of the 49ers.
From the SF Chronicle, June 1, 2005:
It was meant to be funny Ñ but no one is laughing now in the San Francisco 49ers’ front office over an in-house training film that featured off- color racial jokes, lesbian porn, a spoof of gay marriage and a trio of buxom, topless blondes frolicking with team public relations director Kirk Reynolds.
The 15-minute video (see it here), some of which was filmed in the City Hall office of Mayor Gavin Newsom Ñ who comes in for a few unsubtle swipes Ñ was intended as a primer on how players should handle the media in diverse San Francisco.
Instead, it’s turned into a team embarrassment Ñ with PR man Reynolds looking for another job.
The video, said team lawyer Ed Goines, “is absolutely contradictory to the ideals and values of the San Francisco 49ers.”
Even Reynolds is conceding he pushed the envelope a bit too far.
The video, which was sent anonymously to The Chronicle, was shown to players last August during training camp in Santa Clara. It opens with Reynolds seated behind Newsom’s desk, impersonating the mayor and speaking directly into the camera about this “beautiful, diverse and tremendous city.”
“I’m going to take you through the city,” Reynolds says Ñ and what a trip it is.
First stop, Chinatown. Reynolds says the team reads everything written about the players and the organization. Then, to illustrate the point, a bespectacled, buck-toothed Chinese man in an aloha shirt (played by then-49ers trainer and martial arts expert George Chung) is asked to translate an Asian newspaper story.
Sure Ñ the man says in theatrical Asian accent. “Tim Latte (Rattay, a Niners quarterback). He feel good now. He feeling good. No plactice with the team, so most of the time he play with himself.”
