Former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden is opening up about the email controversy that led to his resignation last year.
“I’m ashamed about what has come about in these emails, and I’ll make no excuses for it,” Gruden said Tuesday at the Little Rock Touchdown Club in Arkansas, marking a rare public appearance since he was embroiled in the email controversy. . “It’s shameful.”
In October, Gruden resigned as the Raiders head coach mid-season after emails he sent containing racist, misogynistic and homophobic language came to light. The emails were uncovered as part of the NFL’s investigation into the Washington Football Team’s alleged toxic workplace culture, a probe that resulted in a $10 million fine for the team, but no written report detailing the transgressions that investigators uncovered.
Although he admitted to making “some mistakes,” Gruden said he’s hoping for a shot at redemption. The 59-year-old became emotional as the crowd cheered him on.
“I am a good person. I believe that,” he said. “I go to church. I’ve been married for 31 years. I’ve got three great boys. I still love football. … I just ask for forgiveness and, hopefully, I get another shot.”
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Gruden joked that he would even coach high school football if the opportunity presented itself: “If you got a job open, put me down, baby. I’m interested.”
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On Oct. 8, the Wall Street Journal reported that Gruden used a racist trope when describing NFL Players’ Association executive director DeMaurice Smith in a 2011 email.
Gruden retired on Oct. 11 a little more than an hour after The New York Times separately revealed emails sent between 2011 and 2018, where Gruden used a homophobic slur to describe NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, denigrated one team’s decision to draft a gay player, mocked transgender woman Caitlyn Jenner, deprecated female referees and suggested that a player who kneeled during the national anthem should be fired, among other things.
In November, Gruden filed a lawsuit against the NFL and Goodell over the leaked emails, alleging the league used a “malicious and orchestrated campaign” to destroy his reputation and career. He questioned how emails implicating him were the only ones released out of 650,000 emails obtained during the investigation into WFT.
Gruden’s lawyers won a crucial ruling in May when a Las Vegas judge denied the NFL’s motions to force the lawsuit into arbitration and to dismiss it altogether. By avoiding arbitration, which would prevent case findings from being publicized, Gruden hopes to publicly uncover whether Goodell or any other NFL figure released the emails.
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While speaking to the Little Rock Touchdown Club, Gruden said he’s only interested in honesty.
“I get choked up, you know, because there’s a lot of misunderstanding out there right now,” Gruden said. “What you read, what you hear, what you watch on TV. Hell, I worked at ESPN for nine years. I worked hard at that job. I don’t even want to watch the channel anymore because I don’t believe everything is true. And I know a lot of it is just trying to get people to watch. But I think we’ve got to get back to reality.”
Contributing: Mike Jones; Safid Deen
