Clipper Darrell cries on the news about situation with team [Video]
The Clipper Darrell saga has taken an emotional turn.
Less than a week after it was announced that the team’s superfan was cut loose by the organization, Clipper Darrell talked to Los Angeles’ ABC affiliate after Sunday’s Lakers-Heat game about his sense of betrayal.
Midway through the interview, when sports anchor Rob Fukuzaki asked Clipper Darrell if he intends to change his name, the team’s former mascot burried his head in his hands and began crying.
Clipper Darrell has been a Clippers season ticket holder since the 2000-01 season and he eventually became part of the show. He would come to games decked out in a red and blue custom-made suit and cheer loudly for the team, his jubilant face often displayed on the jumbotron.
Clipper Darrell said he paid for his tickets for nine and a half years before the organization comped them in exchange for appearances.
The organization, however, became upset when Clipper Darrell began representing himself as a team spokesman by making public paid appearances using the organization’s name.
In a news release last Wednesday, the Clippers said that they “had multiple conversations with him concerning his inappropriate use of the Clippers’ team name and trademark for his own unmonitored commercial gain.â€
Clipper Darrell told a different story in the video above, claiming that the team had one conversation with him.
“I tell them everything that I do,†he said.
Clipper Darrell has devoted much of the past decade to the team. Even his house and his car are painted Cilppers colors.
After Clipper Darrell posted to his website that he was “devastated†because “I have been told by Clipper management they no longer want me to be Clipper Darrell,†some of the players, including Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin, took to Twitter to show their support.
All of the players have since deleted those tweets except for Paul.
The Clippers have been on the road since the story broke last Wednesday. It remains to be seen whether Clipper Darrell will be at Staples Center when the team returns from its six-game trip to play Golden State on Sunday.
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