South Carolina basketball coach Dawn Staley refuses to apologize for canceling her team’s game with Brigham Young University despite the complete lack of evidence that a BYU fan hurled racial slurs at a Duke player in August.
Staley self-righteously canceled South Carolina’s game with BYU early in September after Duke volleyball player Rachel Richardson claimed that a fan in the stands in Utah “repeatedly” called her the n-word during the game. In response to the alleged incident, Staley indignantly canceled her school’s game against BYU.
However, in the days following Staley’s grandstanding, no evidence at all was discovered to substantiate Richardson’s claims that she suffered repeated racial epithets.
BYU police performed an in-depth investigation of the Aug. 27 game, and not a shred of evidence came to light. Interviews with fans found no one reported the n-word was yelled multiple times. And the fan that Richardson singled out was proven innocent via video evidence. In fact, he wasn’t even in the arena during some of the times Richardson claimed he was yelling racial slurs.
Despite that, every indication is that Richardson was at the very least mistaken — and at worst perpetrating a hoax — Staley has refused to apologize for canceling the game.
In a recent video, Staley exclaimed that until Richardson herself disavows her claims of racism, then she intends to stick with the cancellations.
“Did the young lady come out and say that she apologized for hearing something wrong? Did she come out and say that? OK, that’s her story. That’s what she’s sticking with. Until she comes out and says that, I’ll be the first to apologize. I’ll be the first to say, ‘I’m wrong,’ but that has yet to come out. So, that’s what I’m sticking with,” Staley insisted.
Staley has pinned her entire stance on the claim of a 19-year-old black volleyball player whose motives for making the accusations are still unknown. Yet, Staley discounts the words of dozens of people, including police officers, school officials, and numerous fans who were in the stands during the alleged incident and said they heard no racial slurs. Is Staley choosing to believe Richardson because she is black? Is Staley ignoring evidence because she thinks everyone at BYU is racist? Or is it both?
Either way, at this point, Staley is the one injecting race into this incident.
Meanwhile, Staley’s decision could have cost her university more than $100,000 for a game cancellation fee. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, BYU and South Carolina had a contract that would have imposed the fee in case of a cancellation. Ultimately, though, the contract was not finalized, and South Carolina insists they do not owe the fee.
Regardless from the weight of the evidence, both Rachel Richardson and Dawn Staley need to apologize to BYU.
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