A radio station fired 2 announcers who got caught calling high-school girls playing basketball 'extremely overweight' on a hot mic

• Two sports announcers were fired after disparaging high schoolers, apparently in a hot-mic incident.
• Jim Carter and Steve Shaw criticized girls on two basketball teams for their weight.

A Maine radio station fired two sports announcers for ridiculing the appearance of high-school girls during a livestream of their basketball game.

WHOU-FM fired Jim Carter and Steve Shaw on Thursday after receiving complaints from parents about the comments the two made regarding the teen girls' weight, the Portland Press Herald reported.

The two announcers had been watching a livestream of a varsity basketball game between Easton High School and Central Aroostook High School.

"Two girls out here extremely overweight," one of them said, apparently on a hot mic, according to the Press Herald. "Awful." Laughter followed the disparaging comments, the outlet reported.

Shaw then talked about finding "uniforms that fit the girls," and Carter singled out one of the girls by her uniform number. "Wow," he said, according to the NBC affiliate WCSH. "Would you look at her?"

The school districts overseeing both Easton and Central Aroostook didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.

But in a statement to WCSH, Easton's superintendent, Mark Stanley, said he became aware of their disparaging comments Thursday night.

"We're a small school up here, we know all our kids really well, we're lucky in that regard, and so we know every single player that was on that team being talked about," he said. "I think anger is probably the reaction everybody had when they saw and heard what happened."

Shaw and Carter had been broadcasting games and providing commentary for about a month, the Press Herald said. Shaw is a former athletic director at Easton, and Carter a former coach from another school.

Neither Carter nor Shaw realized his mic was on while making the remarks, the Press Herald reported.

Parents were outraged upon hearing the remarks.

Joseph Leach, who has a daughter who plays for one of the teams disparaged by Carter and Shaw, told the Press Herald he felt "mostly shock."

"I was home after the games and somebody shared the video with us, and I instantly knew it was Jim Carter and Steve Shaw talking, and I really just couldn't believe what they were saying, honestly," Leach said.

Carter told the Press Herald he apologized to the superintendent.

"I don't even know what to say," Carter said. "Hopefully everybody can get through this and be OK."