Utah women were targeted by ‘racial hate crimes’ during NCAA tournament, coach says

Moments after her team lost its second-round game Monday in the NCAA tournament, Utah women’s coach Lynne Roberts revealed that her players had experienced “racial hate crimes” last week on its first night at the tournament.

Utah players as well as band members and cheerleaders were assigned by the NCAA to accommodations in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, roughly 30 miles from the site of first- and second-round games in Spokane. On Thursday night, they were walking to a restaurant when a white truck near the team revved its engines before the driver yelled the n-word, then sped off. Another similar incident involving two trucks occurred when the group was leaving the restaurant around two hours later.

After Utah’s 77-66 loss Monday night, Roberts told reporters that it was “messed up” that her players did not feel safe.

“We had several instances of some kind of racial hate crimes towards our program. Incredibly upsetting for all of us,” Roberts said. “You know, you think in our world, in athletics and 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. And so when you are, it’s like, you have people say, ‘Man, I can’t believe that happened.’ But 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. And for our players and staff to not feel safe in an NCAA tournament environment is messed up.”

Utah Deputy Athletic Director Charmelle Green, who is Black and was with the group, said the incidents left her numb.

“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,” Green told KSL.com. “We kept walking, just shaking our heads, like I can’t believe that.”

The team’s police escort was based in Washington and had no jurisdiction in Idaho. Members of the group walked each other back to the hotel.

“We were actually rather taken aback by our accommodations, because when we were planning to host we were having similar issues in which we were seeking hotels either in Provo or Park City or Ogden, and the NCAA said no to that, so the fact that we were sent to a place that wasn’t even the state that the university who’s hosting resides was incredibly problematic,” Green said.

South Dakota State and UC-Irvine were staying in Idaho, too, with hotel space in Spokane limited. And the NCAA and host school Gonzaga worked to move Utah to Spokane on Friday.

“I will never forget the sound that I heard, the intimidation of the noise that came from that engine, and the word [n-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 university filed a police report and Athletic Director Mark Harlan called the incidents “disturbing.”

“When we’re on the road, we don’t want to go through anything that was described,” Harlan told KSL.com. “We should not have been there. I do appreciate the NCAA and Gonzaga moving us from that situation, but we should never have been there in the first place. So a lot of folks need to get home and heal from the whole matter.

“But for Charmelle Green and what she’s done in terms of being the director of this group, being the victim of this, along with so many others, is something that is going to take a long time for us all to process. It’s not the experience that our student-athletes and our students overall should have experienced.”

Gonzaga deplored the incident in a statement shared on X.

“Hate speech in any form is repugnant, shameful and must never be tolerated,” the school said in part. “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. …

“We are frustrated and deeply saddened to know that what should always be an amazing visitor and championship experience was in any way compromised by this situation, for it in no way reflects the values, standards, and beliefs to which we at Gonzaga University hold ourselves accountable.”