A lot will fall off Rocco Mediatorarms, including one with Johnny Millerthe most infamous off-the-cuff comments.
During the 2008 US Open, where Mediate famously battled an injured Tiger Woods for 91 holes, Miller found himself in a sticky situation (imagine!) because of some outspoken remarks about Mediate during the broadcast.
In the fourth round, Miller then NBC’s chief analystsaid Mediate “looked like the guy who cleans Tiger’s pool,” later adding, “Guys named ‘Rocco’ don’t get the trophy, do they?”
Some Italian-American groups found the comment insensitive, including: one of whom sent a letter to then-NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol stated that Miller’s comment “reinforces a degrading and harmful stereotype about an entire ethnic group.”
How did Mediate, who was a guest on this week’s episode of GOLF’s Subpar, take it? It didn’t seem to bother him.
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Mediate told co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz that when Miller called him to apologize on the same day as the 19-hole playoff with Woods, Mediate didn’t care.
“He said, ‘I’ll tell you what I said,’” Mediate recalled. “And I said, ‘Yes, what?’ I said, “I don’t mind.”
“He says, ‘Yes, but they’re screaming.’
“I said, ‘I’ll take care of it.'”
Later that year, Mediate was to be honored as Italian-American Athlete of the Year in New York, but he gave the organizers an ultimatum if they continued to insist on punishing Miller.
“I said, ‘If you do one thing, I won’t come – not that they care – but I won’t come to this case,'” Mediate told Knost and Stoltz. “It’s nothing against the Italians. OK, that’s what they’re thinking about, right? I said it’s not against us. Just Johnny being Johnny. It doesn’t bother me.”
But Mediate still wanted to have the last laugh.
Later that year, Miller invited Mediate to his professional event in Utah and introduced him at the pre-tournament gala. Before the gala, Mediate asked someone to go to the hardware store and buy him some PVC pipe, a pool net and a cleaning net, then made sure Miller introduced him last.
“I come back, I pull up my pants, I put on my khakis, I pull them up to my knees, I take off my shoes and socks, I take off my shirt, I put on a T-shirt, I wrap my body in black PVC pipe, I take off my net,” Mediate said.
When he left, the entire room burst into laughter, including Miller.
“Johnny turns around and says, ‘Oh my God,’” Mediate said. “I went to the microphone and said, ‘Do you want to tell him, do you want me to do this?’
“And he leaves. It was the greatest comeback he had ever seen.”
For more information from Mediate, including what he learned from Arnold Palmer and stories from his US Open match with Woods, listen to the entire podcast here or watch below.
