Andy Furman, to know him is to either love him or hate him, there is no in-between.
He’s been on 700WLW for a long time. The Enquirer says 18 years. I don’t think he’s been ‘the’ personality for 18 years but he’s been around for a long time.
(pull)I know he’s been aggravating me and making Sports-Talk hard to listen too for a very, very long time(/pull). Sports fans listen to sports shows to talk about sports, not racial conspiracy theories.
Andy wasn’t always a bigot and a racist but he’s always been at or over the top obnoxious. That was just his style. Over the last few years however he’s really turned it up a notch or 10.
I completely understand there are sport figures and teams (the lowly Bengals who hadn’t won in 10 years would be in that group) who deserve to be dug into from time to time.
Talk radio is about stirring the pot. But Andy’s style was far too aggressive, far too obnoxious, and far too vile.
I don’t know if it was simply jealousy, or what. But it was always clear; Andy had no respect for anyone, except those who kissed his butt. No matter what the issue, Andy it seemed would turn it into a racial issue. I mean it really didn’t matter. Certainly there was a time and place, during the Cincinnati riots, where race was an issue and a top ‘button’ to push. But I never really understood how that affected our sports teams? Once in a while, there might actually be a race related story out there. But with Andy, playing the race card was a weekly occurrence.
People like to try and compare Andy to Bill Cunningham. Bill Cunningham is an entertainer, he’s also borderline obnoxious. But that’s his style. A style that was in place long before Andy came around. When Willey was on during the night time, he too was often controversial, the difference was, Willy made sense most of the time. Rarely did he reach beyond common logic.
Andy it appeared to me, tried to steal from Cunningham’s play book, only in a more vile and hate spreading way. Andy simply went way too far, too often, and I for one am surprised it took this long to get rid of him.
Nope, Andy you won’t be missed by many. Only those whose butts you’ve kissed along the way and somehow avoided offending. After all these years, I don’t know how many people that could be, maybe 5 or 6?
Good luck to you in your future endeavors.