ESPN Journalist Fired for Racist Headline Finds Second Calling as Catholic Priest

ESPN’s been in the news a lot lately, what with President Trump playing his Twitter violin while the cable network’s ratings and viewership numbers burn—that ill-will sparked by SportsCenter anchor Jemele Hill‘s anti-Trump comments on the same medium.

And while the Hill saga may have disappeared, it’s not the first issue where ESPN has had to deal with race, politics, and the fallout.

Take ESPN editor Anthony Federico, for example. When “Linsanity” swept over New York in 2012, the Knicks’ Asian-American star Jeremy Lin killing it on the court, Federico wrote a headline on a negative column about the player that read: “Chink in the Armor.”

He was immediately lambasted on social media, called a racist, and subsequently fired by ESPN. At the time, he called the headline an “honest mistake,” and even had a chance to meet Lin for lunch and apologize.

Now, as the Washington Post reports, Federico, five years removed from journalism, has found a new calling as a Catholic priest. “Looking back, I think G-d allowed this to happen to me to put me on a path to being a priest, a path that I was avoiding,” Federico told the Post. “I’ve never been happier.”