The Norman, Oklahoma, Public Schools District is condemning an announcer who “made racist and hateful comments targeted at our Norman High student athletes” on a livestream of a state basketball tournament, a statement from the district superintendent said.
On Thursday, the Norman High School girls’ basketball team was set to play Midwest City in the Oklahoma 6A state basketball tournament. The game was being livestreamed by the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Network.
A video of the livestream shows that when the Norman players kneeled during the National Anthem, one of the announcers began to hurl insults at them.
“They’re kneeling? F**king n***ers,” the person is heard saying.
“I hope Norman gets their ass kicked,” the speaker, who has not been officially named, says.
After a short pause, with the National Anthem still playing, the insults continued.
“F**k them. I hope they lose.”
“C’mon Midwest City – they’re gonna kneel like that? Hell no,” the announcer says.
The person uses the same slurs one more time before the audio on the recording cuts out entirely.
The school district says in its statement that the announcers were contracted by the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association (OSSAA) for the state tournament.
In a statement, OSSAA acknowledged that it is “aware that some very offensive, inappropriate comments were made during the NFHS livestream broadcast” and they are investigating the incident.
“While we are currently investigating the incident, this crew will not be doing any more games for the remainder of our championships,” the statement said.
OSSAA added that “this kind of behavior will never be tolerated by anyone representing the NFHS or OSSAA.”
NFHS said that it was “sickened by the comments made last night” in a statement released Friday.
“The thoughts expressed in no way represent the NFHS Network and we are outraged that they found their way into our production,” the organization said in its statement. “We are aggressively investigating the incident and have immediately cut ties with the third-party production crew that was involved.”
In a series of tweets on Friday, Norman Mayor Breea Clark said she is “livid and absolutely disgusted about the racist and hateful comments directed towards the young women on the Norman High School basketball team.”
The Norman team won the game 53-40. Going into the game, the team was ranked No. 1 in their bracket with a 17-0 record, according to T.D. O’Hara, the district’s athletic director.