Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin reached out to the ESPN editor fired for the racist "Chink in the Armor" headline and took the journalist out to lunch.
Lin's people reached out to Anthony Federico, the 28-year-old former ESPN employee, and scheduled a lunch during a Knicks off-day. Federico told Newsday that the pair discussed their Christian faith and Lin's recent knee injury that kept him out of a recent game.
"The fact that he reached out to me," Federico said. "The fact that he took the time to meet with me in his insanely busy schedule . . . He's just a wonderful, humble person. He didn't have to do that, especially after everything had kind of died down for the most part.
Federico was fired on Feb. 19th after posting an early morning headline on ESPN's mobile website that was deemed inappropriate by many in the media world. Federico immediately apologized to Lin and anyone that he offended, but ESPN decided to send a message and fire the young journalist.
ESPN also suspended ESPN anchor Max Bretos for a month with a similar comment that could be construed as racist.
Lin accepted the writer's apology and reached out to him more than a month ago. The Knicks starting point guard, who dazzled the country with Linsanity in the month of February, didn't dwell on the racist headline, according to Federico.
"It went incredible," Federico said. "I'm just so excited we had a chance to meet. We talked for an hour. I'm just so thankful."
"We didn't talk about the headline for more than three minutes."