Utah team abandons hotel claiming `racial hate crimes'
Utah coach Lynne Roberts said her team experienced a series of “racial hate crimes” after the arriving at its first NCAA Tournament hotel and was forced to change hotels during the event for safety concerns.
Roberts revealed what happened after Utah lost to Gonzaga in the second round of the NCAA games on Monday. Roberts didn't go into detail but said there were several incidents that happened last Thursday after the team arrived in the area for the tournament and were disturbing to the travelling party to the point there were concerns about safety.
Utah was staying about 48 kilometres away in Coeur d'alene, Idaho, and was relocated to a different hotel on Friday.
“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.”
Utah, South Dakota State and UC Irvine were all staying at hotels in Idaho even with Gonzaga as the host school because of a lack of hotel space in the Spokane area.
There was a large regional youth volleyball tournament in the area during the weekend. That left limited hotel space and Gonzaga received a waiver from the NCAA to allow teams to be housed in Coeur d'alene.
“Racism is real and it happens, and it's awful. So for our players, whether they are white, black, green, whatever, no one knew how to handle it and it was really upsetting,” Roberts said. “For our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA Tournament environment, it's messed up.”
Far-right extremists have made a presence in the region. In 2018, at least nine hate groups operated in the region of Spokane and northern Idaho, including Identity Evropa, Proud Boys, ACT for America and America's Promise Ministries, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.