It’s been a tough couple of months for Gerry Sandusky, said Peter Schrager in Esquire. The Baltimore football sportscaster shares all but a single letter of his name with another, unrelated football personality—the onetime defensive coordinator at Penn State University accused of sexually abusing dozens of children. Gerry has been inundated with hate mail since the allegations became public, and has to explain constantly that he is unrelated to his infamous namesake. “Every time I show my license, give a credit card, whatever—the person on the other end does a double take.”
The worst impact may be on his ability to network, he says. “I was on the field the day after the news broke, and Dick Ebersol—the former head of NBC Sports, an absolute giant in my field—walks by,” he recalls. “So, I extend my hand, ‘Hey, I’m Gerry Sandusky.’ And I see him visibly flinch. Kind of a subtle flinch, but he definitely flinched.” Sandusky explained the confusion, but Ebersol “couldn’t get away from me fast enough.”
He’s tried to defuse the problem with humor, thanking his late mother on Twitter for spelling his first name with a G. “You can’t always control what the universe drops in your lap, but you can control how you handle it.”
