Rutgers successes gleam through Imus mushroom cloud

The Don Imus Perp Walk Of Infamy begins Monday, and the one-sided debate (yeah, like there is another side) over it is beginning to wane, so it might be time to mention something that hasn't really been covered all that much, namely:

C. Vivian Stringer's team got attention for a lousy reason -- but it was attention it deserved. (AP)

This has been a very good year to be Rutgers.

Yes, this is a sideways way to look at this, but yes, it has brought the light to a group of women who hadn't been praised or credited nearly enough for their accomplishments and character until they were publicly demeaned for reasons having nothing to do with either. And when you tie the Rutgers women's basketball team into the football team's triumphs, it really has been a very good year for Rutgers.

Now before we go any further down this twisted little walk, let it be said that praising the Rutgers women in this context has a real military justification taste to it, as in, "Yes, we've blown up your village, but we're going to build you a whole new village that's even better than the one you had." The villagers will never forget and find it difficult to forgive the carpet bombing that took out the old village, no matter how nice the new housing may be.

In other words, the idea that you need to be called "nappy-headed hos" on a nationally syndicated radio/TV show to get your due credit is far too creepy to be defended. The Rutgers women and C. Vivian Stringer should have been noted for their victories and values before this.

But they weren't. Too many sports, not enough time. Too many sporting prejudices, not enough open-mindedness. They came, they went, and except for the true women's hoopheads, they were undernoticed.

But now, those folks who took their eye off Imus in the crosshairs to look at the victims (and they are victims, make no mistake there) saw a fierce dignity that enhanced the status they should have already had. Having been insulted while having done nothing to deserve it, and being insulted in such a rancid way, put Stringer and the players to an interesting and wholly unnecessary test that actually served to elevate them even more.

Again, a resounding victory in a game they should never have had to play. Humor is entirely dependent on three things -- context, aim and delivery – and none of those things were present here. Perhaps Richard Pryor or Lenny Bruce could have made something funny out of "nappy-headed hos," but they were the edgiest and greatest comedians ever, and such a subject should only be handled by the most skilled of comedic practitioners.

Still, having been struck in the back of the head with a sandbag for no good reason, the Rutgers women rose and look even better for their reaction, which speaks to their character in ways that merely getting to the Final Four never could. We learned something about them that they already knew, so the upside for them in this isn't nearly as great, but the fact that we learned it maybe speaks to something we lack.

Namely, the intellectual curiosity to read and learn a bit more about things that don't necessarily interest us. The Rutgers women had a story too few of us wanted to know, and when they were given a new and uglier set of living circumstances, the new story they had to tell glowed all the more brightly.

Will we take this message to heart? Probably not. America's capacity for curiosity has diminished in the last 20 years for reasons too varied and complicated to enumerate here, so we have taken the information age as an invitation to ignore more things than we used to. Once again, the technology outpaces the abilities of the user.

But the message is there nonetheless. This was an inexcusably lousy, and subsequently great, week for the Rutgers women's basketball team, and if they had it to do again, our guess is the women would pass, with thanks. Nobody needs go through this for his or her own good.

But there are lessons to be learned here, and one of the ancillary lessons is that the Rutgers women's basketball team is a working study in dignity and character, one we might never have known had they not been thrown in front of the celebrity bus to hell. If we all learn that, and if we all learn that there are stories like this everywhere waiting to be found under far more benign circumstances, then this will almost have been worth it.

Almost, that is. The Rutgers women may never get back to even on this, but they clearly have the wherewithal to make it close.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.