In the early morning of February 19, fans spotted the headline using the common phrase with the derogatory word atop an ESPN story to describe the Taiwanese-American Lin's turnover prone play as the only negative to the point guard's otherwise superb all-round game. The post was on the mobile site after a Knicks game for about 35 minutes.
Anthony Federico, a 28-year-old Connecticut man, was the editor who wrote the misinterpreted copy. He apologized afterwards, but was still fired. He said it was "an honest mistake."
Right away, Lin accepted the apology and, at the time, the deeply religious player said, "You have to learn to forgive."
According to Newsday, Lin's family were the ones who got in touch with Federico via email over a month ago to set up a meeting. It took so long to get together because yesterday was the first time Lin had a chance to take time out from the Knicks crammed NBA lock-out schedule.
Yesterday, Lin showed Federico he meant what he said.
"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."
A Knicks spokesperson said Lin did not want to discuss the Manhattan lunch meeting. Lin is still tending to a sore left knee and his agent did not return calls to Newsday.
Federico was extremely grateful for Lin's time to clear the air.
"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.
"We talked more about matters of faith [and] reconciliation. We talked about our shared Christian values and what we're both trying to do with this situation . . . We didn't talk about the headline for more than three minutes."
That's Lin-spirational.
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