Coach: Utah forced to move hotels due to racism

Utah coach Lynne Roberts said her team experienced a series of racial hate crimes last week after arriving at its first NCAA tournament hotel and was forced to change hotels for safety concerns.

Roberts didn’t go into detail but said Monday there were several incidents that happened last Thursday night after the team arrived in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, which is located about 30 miles away from Spokane, Washington, where the Utes were scheduled to play in the tournament’s opening weekend.

KSL.com reported early Tuesday that the N-word was yelled at members of the Utah basketball team, along with other members of the traveling party — including cheerleaders and the school band, on multiple occasions as they were walking to and from a restaurant near their hotel in Coeur d’Alene.

Utah deputy athletic director Charmelle Green, who is Black, told KSL.com that the first incident occurred while the team was walking from the hotel to the restaurant. An unidentified person in a white truck revved the vehicle’s engine near the team before yelling the N-word in the team’s direction and speeding off.

“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.”

Green told KSL.com that a similar incident took place about two hours later as the team was leaving the restaurant. Green said two trucks parked near the team began revving their engines before people inside the vehicles again yelled the N-word in their direction.

KSL.com reported that Utah filed a police report. Roberts said the incidents were “shocking” and “incredibly upsetting for all of us,” saying the team had not been exposed to racism very often because of the diversity on college campuses.

“Racism is real and it happens, and it’s awful,” Roberts said after fifth-seeded Utah’s loss Monday to fourth-seeded Gonzaga in the tournament’s second round. “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.”

Green told KSL.com that after the team safely returned to the hotel Thursday night, she “got emotional and started to cry.”

“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.”

Roberts said the NCAA and Gonzaga worked to move her team after the first night in Coeur d’Alene. South Dakota State and UC Irvine also were staying at hotels in Idaho, even with Gonzaga as the host school, because of a lack of hotel space in the Spokane area.

Several years ago, Spokane was announced as a host for the first and second rounds of the men’s NCAA tournament and there was also a large regional youth volleyball tournament during the weekend. With limited hotel space, Gonzaga received a waiver from the NCAA to allow teams to be housed in Coeur d’Alene.

Green said she contacted Utah AD Mark Harlan, who had not yet made the trip to join the team, after the incidents occurred Thursday night. Harlan told KSL.com that the incident was “disturbing” and that the team “should not have been” in Coeur d’Alene.

Far-right extremists have made a presence in the region of Spokane and northern Idaho. In 2018, at least nine hate groups operated in the region, including Identity Evropa, Proud Boys, ACT for America and America’s Promise Ministries, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“We should not have been there,” Harlan told KSL.com. “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 issued a statement after Roberts finished speaking, saying that the first priority is the safety and welfare of everyone participating in the event.

“We are frustrated and deeply saddened to know 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,” the statement said.

Utah’s season ended Monday with the 77-66 loss to Gonzaga. The Utes were hoping to return to the regional semifinals after last year, when they lost 66-63 to eventual national champion LSU in the Sweet 16.

Roberts said that the incident in Idaho was a distraction to her team.

“It was a distraction and upsetting and unfortunate,” Roberts said. “This should be a positive for everybody involved. This should be a joyous time for our program and to have kind of a black eye on the experience is unfortunate.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.