The South Carolina women's basketball team has declared that they would no longer play BYU to start the season in response to a recent incident in which a BYU supporter allegedly hurled racial epithets at a Duke volleyball player during a match.
The decision to suspend a prospective home-and-home series between South Carolina and the Gamecocks scheduled for the 2022–23 and '23–24 seasons was announced in remarks released on Friday by Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley and South Carolina sports director Ray Tanner. On November 7, the Gamecocks were scheduled to host the Cougars in their season opener before going to Utah for a match the following year.
Another opponent for the opening game is presently being finalised by the programme.
“As a head coach, my job is to do what’s best for my players and staff,” Staley said. “The incident at BYU has led me to reevaluate our home-and-home, and I don’t feel that this is the right time for us to engage in this series.”
Tanner added, “Dawn and I have discussed her thoughts on the situation. I support Dawn and all of our coaches in their right to schedule games and opponents that are best for their teams.”
In the week following the Aug. 26 on-campus incident, Brigham Young has come under scrutiny. According to the Associated Press, during the match, Rachel Richardson, Duke's only Black starter, was the target of racial slurs from a fan in the BYU student section. Richardson's godmother also claimed on social media that she was threatened by a white man and told to watch her back as she was walking to the team bus. It was necessary to place a police officer by their bench.
The fan, who was reportedly not a student, was prohibited by the school from using any of its sporting facilities as a result of the event. In a statement announcing the choice, BYU stated that the school "will not tolerate the behaviour of this nature. The use of a racist slur is specifically completely forbidden in any of our sporting events, and BYU Athletics has a zero-tolerance policy for this behaviour.
“We wholeheartedly apologize to Duke University and especially its student-athlete competing last night for what they experienced,” the statement continued. “We want BYU athletic events to provide a safe environment for all, and there is no place for behaviours like this in our venues.”
Richardson, a 19-year-old sophomore from Ellicott City, Maryland, released a statement two days after the incident in which she discussed the event and her strategy moving forward.
“This is not the first time this has happened in college athletics and sadly it likely will not be the last time,” Richardson said. “However, each time it happens we as student-athletes, coaches, fans, and administrators have a chance to educate those who act in hateful ways.”
She continued, “Although the heckling eventually took a mental toll on me, I refused to allow it to stop me from doing what I love to do and what I came to BYU to do: which was to play volleyball. I refused to allow those racist bigots to feel any degree of satisfaction from thinking that their comments had ‘gotten to me,’ So, I pushed through and finished the game.
“Therefore, on behalf of my African American teammates and I, we do not want to receive pity or to be looked at as helpless. We do not feel as though we are victims of some tragic unavoidable event. We are proud to be young African American women; we are proud to be Duke student-athletes, and we are proud to stand up against racism.”