| Salt Lake City |
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| GER |
12 |
16 |
7 |
35 |
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| USA |
10 |
13 |
11 |
34 |
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| NOR |
11 |
7 |
6 |
24 |
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| CAN |
6 |
3 |
8 |
17 |
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| RUS |
6 |
6 |
4 |
16 |
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| AUT |
2 |
4 |
10 |
16 |
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| ITA |
4 |
4 |
4 |
12 |
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| FRA |
4 |
5 |
2 |
11 |
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| SUI |
3 |
2 |
6 |
11 |
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| NED |
3 |
5 |
0 |
8 |
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Denver columnist admits he was wrong
Paige offers his apology in a column today
By Elizabeth White
Deseret News staff writer
View Real Video - Click On Desired Bandwidth
  John Daley reports
Woody Paige says he was wrong. The sports columnist who incensed more than a few Salt Lakers with a sarcastic piece Tuesday about Utah hosting the Winter Games apologized in a column today.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Utahans (sic). I love you. I'm sorry I hurt you," he wrote.
Paige, who is in Salt Lake City covering the Olympics for the Denver Post, wrote today, "the column was not intended to be a vicious, hostile attack, but, upon reflection and rereading what I wrote, it went over the line of propriety." Paige said he wrote the apology column of his own volition.
He said he's visited Utah 50 or more times, he does like the city and residents, but he tends to "write a lot of satire and obviously my satire didn't work."
"I am not anti-Mormon, anti-Utah, anti-Salt Lake City or anti-Winter Olympics," he wrote. "Sincerely, I've enjoyed my stay as a bystander. Utah can be proud of its Olympian effort so far."
The column, published in Tuesday's Denver Post, had angered Utahns who say it teemed with inaccuracies and was downright unfair.
Denver Post Editor Glenn Guzzo said the original column was pulled off the paper's Web site.
"Our position is that we don't defend the column Woody (Paige) wrote," Guzzo said. "It should not have appeared in the paper. . . . Our position is we're agreeing with the folks who object."
The Tuesday column denounced the Games' venue transportation, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and dismissed Salt Lake Organizing Committee volunteers as friendly but incompetent:
"Colorado's new slogan to attract tourists should be: 'Visit beautiful Colorado. We won't force you to take a religious brochure at every street corner, make you eat lime Jell-O at every meal . . . marry three of your mother's cousins, consider you inferior if you're not white, a man or heterosexual, order you to ride to a ski area in a school bus . . . ' "
He also misquoted the Olympic theme, "Light the fire within" incorrectly as, "Light the flame within."
Paige certainly did light a fire in local radio hosts and the LDS Church, who were among those angered by the column.
Mike Otterson, LDS Church director of media relations, said the work "doesn't deserve the amount of space it was given." He took particular exception to Paige's paragraph accusing the LDS Church of using the Games as "a massive Mormon marketing scheme" by posting members throughout downtown and at venues to spread information. The LDS Church only provides literature to visitors in Temple Square if asked for it, Otterson said.
"It is absolutely false," he said. "He seems to have completely confused the fact that there were some anti-Mormon groups around town handing out literature. He's obviously not read the material carefully."
KSL radio talk show host Doug Wright said callers and e-mailers into his show Wednesday morning didn't mind fair criticism, but they thought the column was akin to one in a tabloid.
On the air, Wright and 107.5 "The End" disc jockeys Chunga and Mister West gave out the e-mail address of Paige and phone numbers at the Denver Post. Chunga called Paige a "small-minded bigot" and advised him "to get out of Salt Lake."
Guzzo said he has gotten some reaction from Denver residents but that the response from Utahns has been much greater. "There's nobody saying they love the article; I'd be shocked if anybody did," he said.
Paige's rants are not new to Utahns. During the 1983-84 NBA playoffs, Paige wrote a now-infamous column proclaiming that the Jazz "have no heart." Fans started wearing hearts to games and the Jazz won the series 3-2. In 1994, he struck again, calling the team's name an oxymoron.
Paige also took aim at Miami in 1999 when it hosted the Super Bowl, characterizing the Sunshine State as a foreign country full of mosquitos and robbers.
SLOC did not return phone calls made by the Deseret News Wednesday. Denver Post sports editor Kevin Dale also said the column was inappropriate but that he was too busy to discuss the matter further.
E-MAIL: lwhite@desnews.com
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February 14, 2002
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