Weekend radio is abuzz about Bryant

Kobe Bryant was already the talk of talk radio well before the Lakers guard was formally charged with sexual assault Friday afternoon. But some harsher comments about the star athlete emerged in the nonstop comments once the district attorney in Eagle, Colo., made his announcement.

Before Friday, the sentiment was far more “say it ain’t so,” a combination of shock tempered with optimism for his innocence. After Friday’s televised briefing in Colorado, followed by Bryant’s admission of a sexual liaison with the woman accusing him, callers expressed disappointment over his behavior and certainty that the affair will blot his reputation, even if he’s acquitted.

“He’s not the squeaky clean guy, he’s not the role model that we thought he was,” host Adam Schein said Saturday night on KXTA-AM (1150) in Los Angeles and XTRA-AM (690) in San Diego, which simulcast as XTRA Sports.

“We, as sports fans, were duped. We were made to believe that Kobe was above the lures of a professional athlete.

“I feel bad for the kids who wear the Kobe Bryant jerseys. I feel bad for the parents who have to explain to the kids why it’s a situation where Kobe Bryant is in the news,” he said.

In general, sports stations and their listeners tended to support Bryant to varying degrees -- XTRA has billed itself as the “unofficial station of Kobe Bryant” -- while the news/talk stations were more willing to question the motives of everyone involved, from Bryant and his wife to his accuser, from the Colorado prosecutor to Bryant’s sponsors, Nike and McDonald’s.

Ken Chiampou, co-host of “The John & Ken Show” on news/talk station KFI-AM (640), recalled Friday watching Bryant earlier in the week on ESPN’s “Espy Awards” show.

“The first thing I noticed was how clean-cut he looked. I mean, he just looked like a defendant,” Chiampou said. “I hate to say it, but he looked like somebody that was sprucing up for the cameras.

“That can backfire on you ... if people now look at that with a jaundiced eye, thinking you were just trying to put on a show for us.”

The conversations also featured some frank comments about adultery. Many hosts and callers took it as a given that a sports figure would cheat on his wife, although that didn’t satisfy everyone.

“Maybe he’s a serial philanderer,” said Joe McDonnell, co-host of “The McDonnell-Douglas Show” on sports station KSPN-AM (710), while he was a guest on Larry Elder’s program on news/talk outlet KABC-AM (790). “That could very well be possible, but that’s a big jump to being a rapist.”

But Melinda, a caller to Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton’s show Friday night on XTRA Sports, had a jaded eye for both Bryant and his accuser.

“Most men out there have done that,” she said. “I love and trust my husband, but I’m a woman and I know that men have temptations. And I also know that women are evil. Women are evil, and I would not put it past a woman to put herself in a situation like that and then cry wolf.”

Though that was by no means the popular sentiment, others expressed suspicion about the motives of Bryant’s accuser.

J.J., a caller to Schein’s show Friday night on XTRA, noted that the woman auditioned to be a contestant on the television show “American Idol.” “Isn’t that a red flag right there that she wants to be famous?”

But Linda, a caller to Elder’s show, said the woman “was 19 and maybe very naive about what happens when you go to a man’s room in the middle of the night.”

Several callers suggested that -- if he’s acquitted -- Bryant’s reputation could survive his admission of adultery, noting that Michael Jordan weathered the publicity surrounding an extramarital affair and the dueling lawsuits that resulted.

Some observers even speculated the tumult would increase Bryant’s “street credibility” among fans who prefer their basketball players more in the bad-boy mold of Philadelphia 76er guard Allen Iverson, who has had scrapes with the law dating to his teen years.

Schein dismissed such claims. “There’s no way you can tell me this will help Kobe Bryant in terms of endorsements.”