The sports frat house and their cadre of minions who hear only what they want to hear have taken on the wrong person this time.

“USA Today” sports reporter Christine Brennan has been on the front lines of these battles over female sports reporters for almost thirty years, and not even being misquoted or mocked by infantile talk radio Neanderthals will cause her to back down.

I won’t waste a lot of time here rehashing this contrived controversy, rather address some of the more salient points which are, of course, lost amidst the mad media rush to sensationalized judgment.

Brennan’s original opinion posted on her Twitter account was spot-on correct. “Women sports journalists need to be smart and not play to the frat house. There are tons of nuts out there”.

Indeed there are. And those nuts, for the most part, are the ones who not only create but flock like Viagra-starved lemmings to every list of “Hottest Babes” or “Slinkiest Sexy Sportscasters” lists polluting the Internet and radio station web sites.

The ones most sought after by radio and TV advertisers because of their youth, their buying power, desire for things that go fast in the night, and conveniently absent morals. You know the type.

The ones who actually believe that woman in the shower with Danica Patrick would desire their manly ability to name all the hobbits in “Lord of the Rings”. First and last names, of course.

At no time, even reading between the lines with an electron microscope, did Brennan at any time indicate nor even hint that Erin Andrews’ “deserved” to have a video taken of her by some peephole smut merchant that undoubtedly saw either dollar signs or the much coveted “You Tube” hit meter heading north.

Even the hint of such an allegation is laughable and, as is usually the case in these matters, spit out by those who have not a shred of knowledge about the actual situation or the person involved.

I have known and worked alongside Christine Brennan in the neighborhood of thirty years, beginning with our membership in the Miami press corps. Back then, when I was about 12 or 13, we were all squeezed into an Orange Bowl locker room the size of a modern NFL player’s bathroom trying to get those milliseconds of post game brilliance from the players.

Christine was one of the very first female sports reporters in the country to gain access to the all-male football frat house, and the movement could not have been represented better. She stood her ground and was every second a professional as players and even some fellow media members of the male persuasion snickered and joked.

That’s just part of what to this day has kept her held in extremely high regard by everyone in the sports reporting trade. She remains one of the very best this business has to offer, and paid her dues to get there.

There are far too many female sports journalists who believe the road to respectability is paved with push-up bras and snuggling up to athletes with more than an interview in mind. In the same breath, there are far too many TV station and network executives who force female reporters in both news and sports to accentuate their positives, and I don’t mean writing skills.

I have watched from the insider’s perspective as some very good female reporters careers were derailed thanks to consultants and demographics experts who made them repeat the mantra, “Style over substance”, instead of the proper manner in which it was long taught.

Women sports journalists do have be a lot smarter than their male counterparts, though I have encountered more than a few male sports reporters who wouldn’t know the difference between a double-dip and a dipstick. Brennan has remained tireless in her efforts speaking to younger woman and impressing upon them that very same concept, not playing to the “frat house”.

Any of these bellowing Internet ranters who bothered to take a few seconds to look into Brennan’s background will easily discover she has used that phrase for many years, each time in educating a new generation in how to respect not only a profession, but themselves first and foremost.

Christine Brennan is a good friend and a respected journalist. She doesn’t need my help in convincing anyone of her professionalism and devotion to her craft.

She also doesn’t deserve the criticism heaped upon her by the single-digit IQ Internet fraud “journalists”. The ones who use something like this the same way television executives use those young female reporters unfortunate enough to have their job depend on cleavage tape and tight jeans.

Playing to the original nuts in the frat house.

Veteran network sportscaster & journalist Ed Berliner's exclusive interview with Christine Brennan can be heard at "Stone Cold Sports".