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The Utah women's basketball team said they were subjected to repeated racist harassment while staying in Idaho for an NCAA women's basketball tournament in Washington, an incident the team's coach said has tainted the players' experience.
The University of Utah team traveled to Spokane, Washington, for the competition last week. Due to another sporting event in the city leading to high demand for accommodation, several teams stayed in hotels in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, approximately 30 miles from Spokane.
The Utah players said the first incident happened while they were walking to a restaurant for dinner. Someone in a truck with a Confederate flag yelled racist slurs, including the N-word, they said.
"We all just were in shock, and we looked at each other like, did we just hear that?" Utah deputy athletics director Charmelle Green, who is Black, told KSL.com. "Everybody was in shock — our cheerleaders, our students that were in that area that heard it clearly were just frozen."
After the team left the restaurant, the driver of the same truck, accompanied by another vehicle, followed them back to the hotel. The drivers revved their engines and shouting racist epithets again, the players said.
Utah coach Lynne Roberts called the incidents "incredibly upsetting."
"Racism is real and it happens, and it's awful," Roberts said at a news conference on Monday. "And for your players and staff to not feel safe in [an] NCAA tournament environment, it’s messed up."
The team then coordinated with the host school, Gonzaga University, and the NCAA to move to a different place to stay in Spokane, the University of Utah said in a statement. And although the UC Irvine team was not involved in the incident, it also requested to move “for the well-being and safety of our student-athletes and the entire travel party,” spokesperson Mike Uhlenkamp told The Associated Press.
In a statement provided to news organizations, the NCAA said it condemned racism. “We are devastated about the Utah team’s experience while traveling to compete on what should have been a weekend competing on the brightest stage and creating some of the fondest memories of their lives," it said.
Coeur d’Alene Police are looking into the incidents after a police report was filed that night. Police Chief Lee White also said he was working with the FBI, the AP reported.
Meanwhile, local officials have apologized to the team. "To the young women who endured racial slurs while visiting, I offer my most sincere apology," Coeur d’Alene Mayor Jim Hammond said at a news conference on Tuesday.
White supremacists have historically had a stronghold in the Pacific Northwest, and many alt-right and neo-Nazi groups are known to currently operate in the area.
As some residents held signs denouncing racism at Tuesday's news conference, the event was disrupted by David Reilly, a far-right activist who attended the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia and has tweeted antisemitic remarks in the past. (He denied being a racist or white supremacist when resigning from a radio job in 2017.) He was booed by the crowd and the news conference ended abruptly.