Utah women victims of ‘hate’ during tourney: coach
Utah’s women’s basketball team changed hotels after experiencing multiple “racial hate crimes” in Idaho during the NCAA Tournament, coach Lynne Roberts said. The Utes arrived last week in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, about 30 miles outside of the tournament site in Spokane, Wash. “Racism is real and it happens, and it’s awful,” Roberts said Monday night after Utah’s second-round loss to Gonzaga. “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.” Members of the Utah basketball team, the cheerleading squad and the band were walking to dinner Thursday when they heard a truck engine rev and someone yell the N-word toward them, deputy athletics director Charmelle Green told KSL.com. Upon leaving the restaurant two hours later, the group was allegedly met by two trucks with revving engines and again heard the N-word yelled in their direction, Green said. “I got emotional and started to cry,” Green, who is Black, told the Utah-based news outlet. “I will never forget the sound that I heard, the intimidation of the noise that came from that engine, and the word,” Green said. “I go to bed and I hear it every night since I’ve been here. … I couldn’t imagine us having to stay there and relive those moments.” The NCAA and host school Gonzaga helped coordinate Utah’s move to a hotel in Spokane. Hotel space in Spokane had been largely unavailable, which originally resulted in Utah, South Dakota State and UC Irvine ending up in Idaho. Green called it “incredibly problematic” that Utah was sent to a city outside of the state where the tournament was taking place. Gonzaga said in a statement that the university was “frustrated and deeply saddened” by the incidents. Utah filed a police report. “It’s shocking,” Roberts said. “There’s so much diversity on a college campus, so you’re just not exposed to that very often.” With News Wire Services