South Carolina women’s basketball coach Don Staley ended the team’s upcoming two-game winning streak at Brigham Young University (BYU) after Duke University volleyball player Rachel Richardson said on Friday that a BYU fan had racially insulted her in a recent game.
South Carolina women’s basketball is scheduled to open its season with a home game against BYU, followed by an away game on the BYU campus for the 2023–24 season.
“My job as head coach is to do what’s best for my players and staff,” Staley said in a statement. “The BYU incident made me reevaluate our home and home and I feel like now is not the right time for us to be on this drama.”
South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Don Staley instructs during the Women’s Final Four between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Louisville Cardinals on April 1, 2022, at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Staley’s decision came after Richardson, a black man, told a white BYU supporter to hurl racial slurs at him during the game and “watch him” when he returned to the bus after the game.
However, the BYU Police Department was reportedly unable to confirm Richardson’s claims about the fan.
According to Breitbart News:
The allegations and counterclaims prompted the BYU police department to search for footage of the game to confirm the man’s behavior. But they see no evidence that the expelled man acted as he was accused, according to the ministry.
“When we watched the video, we didn’t see this behavior from him,” BYU police lieutenant George Besendorfer told the Tribune.
The BYU official agrees. “There was nothing in the live-action movie that led me to believe that ‘this person’ was the person who commented on the actor who complained about invoking the N-word,” the official said.
Despite the BYU Police Department’s decision, the school has banned fans from future matches and has issued an apology to the Duke Volleyball Club. In addition, the Utah school excludes the student cheerleading division from volleyball games.
Duke volleyball player Rachel Richardson
South Carolina athletic director Ray Tanner supported Staley’s decision to cancel the series at BYU.
“Don and I discussed his thoughts on the situation,” Tanner said. I support Dawn and all our coaches in their right to plan the best games and opponents for their team.”
Source: Breitbart
