Caller to NFL Hurricane Relief Telethon Disappointed to Get Jay Fiedler on the Phone

From SportsPickle.com - 9/21/05

Dozens of callers into the NFL’s Hurricane Relief Telethon Monday night were extremely disappointed when the “star player” they got on the phone was New York Jets backup quarterback Jay Fiedler.

“Here I take the time out of my night to call up this telethon and make a donation and all I get is Jay freaking Fiedler on the phone? Nah, screw that,” said David Munoz or Tempe, Arizona. “I demanded he put a good player on the phone and when he refused, I told him to go shove his hurricane relief and hung up the phone. If these are the kind of scrubs they’re using to beg people for money, I’ll donate elsewhere.”

Munoz was just one of dozens of potential donors who had the same reaction.

“So I’m watching the telethon during the Giants-Saints games, and up in front for the cameras they have people like John Elway, Donovan McNabb and Howie Long sitting there,” said Marcus White, who called in from Bradenton, Florida. “What they didn’t tell the TV viewers is that you probably won’t get someone famous like that on the phone. Nope, they give you the guy sitting way in the back corner of the set – the freaking guy who screwed up my Dolphins for five years. I wasn’t going to donate nothing to that piece of crap.”

Wright and many others called the telethon back to complain about being forwarded through to Fiedler.

“I spoke to the manager of the whole phone thing and she was totally unsympathetic to my point,” said Wright. “She said Fiedler was simply trying to due his part to help out and that I should consider the victims of the hurricane over my feelings on Fiedler. Obviously, she has no idea what a crappy quarterback he is. But admittedly, I guess it could have been worse. They could have given me Danny Kanell.”