The celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe had a sour turn earlier this week, after Jerry Rice got into a verbal spat with members of the media.
Rice was playing at the American Century Championships when he was approached by a Chiefs reporter for Starcade Media in Kansas City.
The reporter recorded himself asking Rice whether the Chiefs had “a good enough receiving corps this year to win again.”
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Former San Francisco 49er and Hall of Famer Jerry Rice cheers during the game against the Kansas City Chiefs at Levi’s Stadium on October 23, 2022, in Santa Clara, California. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Rice initially ignored the question, but Starcade’s video cuts a few moments later to Rice approaching the reporter, calling him a “f—ing a–hole.”
Another video, obtained by TMZ, sees the two going back and forth, where Rice can be heard saying, “I will f–k you up.”
Rice told TMZ that the question had been asked to get a rise out of the NFL legend. The Chiefs just beat his former San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl for the second time in four years this past February.
“I’m going to defend the San Francisco 49ers,” he told TMZ, adding that the question had been asked with a smirk on the reporter’s face. “This is my history.”
Hall of Famer NFL player Jerry Rice in the second half of a NCAA football game between the USC Trojans and the Stanford Cardinal at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles on Saturday, September 9, 2023. (Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)
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The outlet, though, denied such a notion in a Facebook post where they wanted to “set the record straight.”
“We meant absolutely no disrespect to Jerry or the 49ers when asking this question as we have a profound respect for the great players that have played this game, especially (in our opinion) the greatest receiver of all time,” the outlet said.
“The confrontation that followed was very unfortunate but we were not trying to elicit a negative reaction and there were no ‘smirks’ as Mr. Rice suggested. We simply wanted the input of the greatest receiver in league’s history about the Chiefs receiving corps and if it had improved enough to continue winning at a high level after an historically rough season for the group.
Wide receiver Jerry Rice, #80 of the San Francisco 49ers, celebrates a 38-yard touchdown in the second quarter of Super Bowl XXIV against the Denver Broncos on January 28, 1990, at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. San Francisco won 55-10. (Rich Pilling/Diamond Images via Getty Images)
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“We would be more than open to speaking with Jerry personally to clear the air on what happened and put it all behind us.”
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