Quarterback Marcus Mariota’s name routinely is mispronounced, with the first syllable of his last name being spoken like the “A” in Mary and not the “A” in, well, Marcus. On Thursday night, Commissioner Roger Goodell got the first syllable right -- but he got the last one wrong.
“Marioto” is what Goodell said. Not long after that, Goodell called Mariota to say, “Sorry.”
Via Paul Kuharsky of ESPN.com, Mariota told 104.5 The Zone in Nashville on Monday that Goodell phoned the No. 2 overall pick later that night to acknowledge the error.
“Everyone was cheering so loud that I wasn’t able to actually hear it,” Mariota said. “He gave me a call probably half an hour later. He apologized, and I’m like, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ But he was really apologetic and I truly respect that for sure.”
It’s good that Goodell apologized. It would have been better if he hadn’t gotten it wrong. While we all make mistakes when speaking (and I make plenty of them during three hours of extemporaneous radio every day), the practice of delivering one name at a time roughly 10 minutes apart should entail a success rate much closer to 100 percent -- especially when any tricky pronunciations are pre-printed on the cards containing the players’ names.
Which leads to another point. Now that the first round of the NFL draft has become a prime-time TV spectacle, why is the Commissioner still the one who announces the picks? Whether they hire James Earl Jones or Michael Buffer or Jeremy Irons or Sam Elliott or Morgan Freeman, the draft has become big enough that the NFL should consider getting a professional speaker with a memorable voice to call out the names -- especially if the Commissioner isn’t going to nail each and every name, each and every year.
