The NCAA tournament is supposed to give us some of the most spectacular moments in sports. It’s supposed to be one of the best moments of the participating athlete’s lives.
It seemed to be anything but that for Utah’s women’s basketball team on Monday and it has nothing to do with the result on the court against Gonzaga.
Utah head coach Lynne Roberts said her team experienced so much hate and harassment after arriving in Idaho for the team’s tournament game that the school had to switch hotels. She spoke about it in detail in a press conference after the team’s loss to Gonzaga.
“We had several incidences of racial hate crimes toward our program. Incredibly upsetting for all of us,” Roberts said. “You think it’s shocking in our world — in athletics and university — settings. There’s so much diversity on a college campus and you’re not exposed to that very often. So when you are, you have people say, ‘Man, I can’t believe that happened.’ But racism is real and it happens. And it’s awful.”
“For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment, it’s messed up,” she continued.
This happened because of a logistical issue that prevented Utah from staying in Spokane, Washington ahead of their games over the weekend. Instead, the team was moved a short drive away to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho where players and staff members were harassed and experienced hate crimes.
Here’s everything we know about the incidents and what the team experienced in Idaho.
So what exactly happened?
Roberts said there were several hate crimes the team experienced after arriving in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho on Thursday.
She didn’t go into detail herself, but KSL.com reported the incident in detail on Tuesday
The team arrived in Coeur d’Alene on Thursday. Later that night when the team’s traveling party was headed to dinner, someone yelled the N-word at them.
That same night after dinner as the team was leaving the restaurant, two trucks reportedly began revving their engines at the team. Those inside the truck began yelling the N-word at the traveling party again.
Following those incidents, the team chose to switch hotels on Friday, the night before the team’s first game in Spokane.
Oh my word. That's awful.
It is. Deputy athletics director Charmelle Green, who is Black, spoke to KSL about the incidents. She seemed devastated.
“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 … Kept walking, just shaking our heads, like I can’t believe that.”
That’s why the team switched hotels. They didn’t feel safe anymore with where they were staying.
The tournament was in Spokane. Why was Utah in Idaho in the first place?
Utah was sent to Coeur d’Alene because of a lack of space in Spokane. Both the men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments were taking place in the city, so there was a lack of hotel space available for the team to lodge. The city was reportedly “full at capacity,” according to Cherie Gwinn, the senior director of events for the Spokane Sports Commission.
Coeur d’Alene is reportedly a 35-minute drive away from the McCarthey Athletic Center in Spokane where the games were taking place, so that’s where the team stayed.
This was obviously a huge mistake that should’ve been avoided.
Is Coeur d’Alene known to have problems like this?
Maybe not on a national scale. But, locally, this probably didn’t surprise anyone. Northern Idaho — and Coeur d’Alene, specifically — has been known as a hub for white nationalists. It’s been that for quite some time. The Aryan Nations neo-nazi group was headquartered in the region from 1974 to 2000 before being disbanded.
Clearly, some folks in the region refuse to let go of that history.
Yikes. Well, did Gonzaga have anything to say about this?
These incidents happened essentially because of logistical issues for Gonzaga. Part of the men’s tournament is held in Spokane, Washington where the Bulldogs play. Because the higher seeds in the women’s tournament get homecourt advantage, both tournaments took place in the city simultaneously. There wasn’t enough hotel space to house Utah initially. Coeur d’Alene was just a short drive from Spokane, where Utah and Gonzaga played.
So, though it’s not Gonzaga’s fault that Utah was treated the way it was, it was ultimately the school’s decision that sent the Utes to Idaho.
Gonzaga released a statement after Robert’s press conference saying it has been “made aware” of the “racially disparaging comments” made to Utah in Coeur d’Alene.
“Hate speech in any form is repugnant, shameful and must never be tolerated. We worked hard to secure the opportunity to serve as the host institution and our first priority is and must be the safety and welfare of all student-athletes, coaches, families and supporting staff. To this end, we have worked closely with the NCAA and program participants to support the security and safety of everyone involved.”
Has the NCAA said anything yet?
Nope. The NCAA hasn’t commented yet. That’s a bad look for the organization, considering the logistical issue at the root of this is something the NCAA should be planning for.
Maybe the organization will issue a statement later on. If it does, we’ll have it here.
