Unfortunately for the Utah Utes women’s basketball team, their March Madness experience was marred upon arrival by a racist incident.
According to head coach Lynne Roberts, her team experienced a number of “racial hate crimes” after they arrived at their hotel in Coeur d’Alene in Idaho, which is roughly 30 miles away from Gonzaga, the host school in Spokane, Washington.
Coach Roberts, after the team lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the tournament on Monday night, said the incidents took place on Thursday night when they arrived. It was so bad that they were concerned about the team’s safety and were eventually relocated to a different hotel the next day.
She didn’t go into detail about the incidents, but she appeared shaken up while revealing what happened.
“We had several instances of some kind of racial hate crimes toward our program and it was incredibly upsetting for all of us,” Roberts said. “In our world, in athletics and in university settings, it’s shocking. There’s so much diversity on a college campus and so you’re just not exposed to that very often.”
According to KSL.com, players, team members, cheerleaders and the school band were called the N-word as they walked around the town.
ESPN.com writes, “Utah deputy athletics director Charmelle Green, who is Black, told KSL.com that the first incident occurred while the team was walking from the hotel to the restaurant. An unidentified person in a white truck revved the vehicle’s engine near the team before yelling the N-word in their direction and speeding off.”
“We all just were in shock, and we looked at each other like, did we just hear that? … Everybody was in shock — our cheerleaders, our students that were in that area that heard it clearly were just frozen,” Green told KSL.com. “We kept walking, just shaking our heads, like I can’t believe that.”
The school filed a police report on the incidents.
Utah, along with South Dakota State and UC Irvine, were staying at hotels in Idaho as Spokane was also hosting the first and second rounds of the men’s tournament and a large regional youth volleyball tournament. Due to the crunch put on hotels, the NCAA granted Gonzaga a waiver to allow teams to be hosted in Coeur d’Alene.
“Racism is real and it happens and it’s awful,” Roberts said. “So for our players, whether they are white, black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it and it was really upsetting. For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it’s messed up.”
The Utes have 3 Black players, 2 Spanish players, one Samoan player and a Black assistant coach.
Fortunately for these team members, the NCAA and Gonzaga wasted no time in helping to relocate the Utes after the incidents.
“It was a distraction and upsetting and unfortunate,” Roberts said. “This should be a positive for everybody involved. This should be a joyous time for our program and to have kind of a black eye on the experience is unfortunate.”
Gonzaga issued a statement on X/Twitter about the incident.
“Hate speech in any form is repugnant, shameful and must never be tolerated,” wrote Gonzaga. “We are frustrated and deeply saddened to know what should always be an amazing visitor and championship experience was in any way compromised by this situation for it in no way reflects the values, standards and beliefs to which we at Gonzaga University hold ourselves accountable.”
Hopefully, those involved are punished. We’ll keep you updated on this story as more news becomes available.
