The NCAA let the Utah women’s basketball team down

The NCAA should have known better.

On March 21, members of the University of Utah’s travel group for women’s basketball — players, coaches, an associate athletic director, cheerleaders and band members — arrived in Spokane, Washington, for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament and then made the 33.5-mile trip to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where their hotel was located.

Not long after, while walking to a restaurant, members of the group said, a white pickup truck rolled up on them, the driver revved its engine, then shouted the N-word and drove off.

When they left the restaurant two hours later to walk back to the hotel, two trucks were allegedly waiting, again revving their engines in what felt like a menacing way and screaming epithets.

Utah worked with the NCAA and Gonzaga to get its group moved to a hotel in Spokane for the remainder of their stay. The Utes won their opening game over South Dakota State and lost in the second round to the host Gonzaga.

Days later, Utah officials and players are still processing the racial trauma and pointing the finger at the NCAA.

On Tuesday, a statement issued by the University of Utah and signed by athletic director Mark Harlan, deputy athletic director Charmelle Green and coach Lynne Roberts read in part, “We are continuing to provide support and resources to all of those impacted. As we continue to heal, we remain very disappointed in the decision to assign our team to hotels such a great distance from the competition site, in another state.

“We will work with NCAA leadership to make it clear that being so far removed from the site was unacceptable and a contributing factor to the impact of this incident.”

I suspect everyone reading this knows that anti-Black sentiment is everywhere in this country. It’s what it was built on.

But the NCAA and Gonzaga let these young women and their team’s support staff down, as well as the UC Irvine and South Dakota State, the other teams that were forced to stay in Coeur d’Alene.

If there is a place in this country that could be called the home of hate, it’s the northern Idaho panhandle. Lake Hayden, about six miles north of Coeur d’Alene, is where the Aryan Nations neo-Nazi group was founded in 1977 and held annual gatherings through the late 1990s. According to the state statistics, 20 of the 50 reported hate crimes in Idaho in 2022 were reported by Black people. While things did get better after the Aryan Nations was bankrupted and finally forced out of town, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, says that the number of white supremacist cells in Idaho has risen in recent years. And now, some of those groups seemingly have the support of state and local politicians, with far-right Republicans gaining traction in the state GOP.

Just this week, Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a bill banning “diversity statements” and other diversity, equity and inclusion teaching and activities from the state, crowing about it on Facebook, tacitly giving approval to those who foment racial animosity (while ignoring that DEI initiatives are also meant to help women and the disabled).

It feels necessary to point out that it was sheer coincidence that Spokane ended up hosting the first two rounds for the men’s and women’s tournaments, and with a large youth volleyball tournament also held in the relatively small city last weekend, lodging was scarce. Men’s teams play all rounds at neutral sites, and Spokane had long since been awarded first- and second-round games for the 2024 men’s tournament. On the women’s side, the top four seeds in each region host opening weekend games. Since Gonzaga was the No. 4 seed in the Portland region, that meant even more athletes were headed to eastern Washington. Gonzaga requested and received a waiver from the NCAA to place teams in Coeur d’Alene because it is more than 30 minutes away from the host arena.

Yet, given all of the history, how did anyone involved think it was a good idea to put any teams in the town, let alone two that have several Black players, coaches and support staff? UC Irvine’s roster features one of the very few players in women’s college basketball who wears a hijab. With the hatred many white supremacist groups hold toward Muslims, you shudder to think what could have happened had they seen Anteaters guard Diaba Konate.

A UC Irvine official said that after hearing what happened to the Utes, their group moved out of Coeur d’Alene.

Green, the Utes’ deputy athletics director and a Black woman, told Utah online news site KSL.com that she was upset after the appalling incidents.

“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 said. “We kept walking, just shaking our heads, like I can’t believe that.”

After the second incident of hatred as the team was leaving the restaurant, “I got emotional and started to cry,” Green said. After making sure the group got back to its hotel safely, “I went back and just had some alone time. I was just numb the entire night.”

Couer d’Alene mayor Jim Hammond has condemned the abuse, apologizing and saying he’d like to speak with the staff and team. The police chief said that investigators are looking for video and seeking witness reports, and the FBI is now involved.

Gonzaga officials quickly released a statement expressing remorse. But as of this writing, there has been silence from the NCAA, the very organization that gave Gonzaga the green light to put those teams in a place infamous for its standing as a haven for extremists.

Given how the NCAA has treated women’s teams for years — remember the substandard “weight room” they were provided during the 2021 tournament? – the organization doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt that it was simply ignorant of Coeur d’Alene’s history, not from this writer. Not when it has tried to explain away clear evidence of subpar facilities and treatment of female athletes, and an outside investigation conducted almost three years ago found that the NCAA deliberately undervalued the women’s Division I basketball tournament “in ways that create, normalize, and perpetuate gender inequities.”

A second investigation into sports besides basketball revealed more gender inequities that “while disappointing, not a surprise,” that report stated.

What should have been a joyful time for the Utes, a chance to show off their rapidly improving program and fete their seniors, instead will be remembered for the very worst reasons.

They deserved better.